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Who owns the water service line in Colma, CA

Which part of the pipe is yours

your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

BelowGrid has no first-call guidance on file from California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District) about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

The utility owns the service pipe, the curb stop, the meter and the meter box. The customer owns the piping past the meter - and the curb stop, which folklore treats as the boundary, is expressly the utility's. This is California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District)'s own statement.

California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District)
The utility's CPUC tariff states that "the service pipe, curb stop, meter, and meter box furnished by the utility at its own expense and located wholly or partially upon a customer's premises are the property of the utility" - so the run from the main, the fitting at the curb, and the meter itself are all the utility's, even where they sit on the customer's land.
The property owner
The piping from the meter onward. The tariff makes this the customer's own job as a condition of getting service: they must "furnish and lay the necessary piping to make the connection from the service connection to the place of consumption" and must "keep such piping in good repair" (section A.2.a). Cal Water puts the same line to householders in plainer words on its help page "Who is responsible for making repairs?": "Property owners are responsible for repairs to plumbing on their side of the water meter." The same page pairs that with "Cal Water is responsible for repairs within the distribution system", which does not say whether the pipe running to your meter counts as part of that system - so if the leak is on the street side of the meter, that is the sentence to put to them.

Sources

California Water Service, Rule No. 16

Also quoted:

Checked

What California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District) reported to the State about service-line materials

Federal rules required every community water system to inventory its service lines and publish the result. These are the figures this one filed.

The inventory records what each line is made of: lead, galvanized requiring replacement, non-lead, or lead status unknown. “Still unclassified” counts the lines whose material has not been identified. It does not mean they are lead.

California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District) has classified less of its network than most of California: 89.9% of its service lines are still unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.

Service lines reported
17,175
Still unclassified
15,446 (89.9%)
Across California, 9.2% of service lines are unclassified.
Share of service lines still unclassified
  • California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District)89.9%
  • California9.2%

What this page cannot tell you

  • This describes who is responsible for which part of the pipe. It is not a record of what your own service line is made of.
  • The State's service area map puts effectively all of Colma's land inside the boundary it maps for California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District). Measured 25 Sep 2026.
  • Unclassified means nobody has established what the pipe is made of. It does not mean lead was found.
  • Classified does not mean inspected, and this system inspected less than most. California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District) established 0.0% of its classifications by field inspection, against 22% across California; the rest come from records, the year of construction, or a predictive model.
  • These figures were submitted to the State by the water system itself and were read on 4 Sep 2026. They may not reflect its current inventory - ask the water system to confirm anything about a specific address.
California Water Service, South San Francisco system (Bayshore District): official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

For the sewer lateral, Colma says:

In Colma the side sewer - the whole lateral, from the building to the main sewer - is the owner's to maintain. The Town's code provides that "Side sewers shall be maintained by the owner of the property served thereby."

Your sewer lateral is yours to the main; your water line stops being yours at the meter.

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Colma, CA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Colma in general. To see which authorities serve one address, and what records exist for it, search for it.

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How this compares across California