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Who owns the water service line in Foster City, CA

Which part of the pipe is yours

  • Water service line

    Yours from the meter to your building — if certain conditions are met

    Why, and what to do
  • Sewer lateral

    Yours all the way to the main, including the fitting where it joins

    Why, and what to do
your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours. A dashed marker means the position depends on your property — see below.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

BelowGrid has no first-call guidance on file from Estero Municipal Improvement District about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

In Foster City the Estero Municipal Improvement District owns the service connection from the main, and on a public street the owner's side begins at the meter. Section 8.12.070 of the District's code provides that "Customer water service facilities are the responsibility of the property owner to repair, replace and maintain, except in cases in which the property owner has a written agreement with the district." On a private street the District's own diagram leaves it only the meter itself. This is Estero Municipal Improvement District's own statement.

Estero Municipal Improvement District
The service connection, which section 8.08.390 defines as "the pipeline and appurtenant facilities such as the curb stop, meter and meter box, if any, all used to extend water service from a distribution main to premises". Section 8.16.010 provides that "The service connection, whether located on public or private property, is the property of the district, unless specifically otherwise provided, and the district reserves the right to repair, replace and maintain it". The responsibility comes from the diagrams printed with the code: beside that section, the run from the water main to the meter is labelled District Responsibility, and for a public street the meter detail gives the District the curb stop, the meter and the box lid.
The property owner
The customer water service facilities, which section 8.08.120 defines as "water service lines and fixtures located on private property", starting with a valve the customer must provide "on the customer's side of the meter to control the flow of water to the piping on his/her premises".

What decides which applies

The line depends on the street. The code's own diagrams draw two cases. On a public street, the meter detail labels the curb stop, the meter and the box lid District Responsibility and the pipe on the house side of the meter the homeowner's, so the line is the meter's outlet. On a private street, the private meter detail labels only the meter District Responsibility; the curb stop, the meter box and lid, and the pipe on both sides of the meter, including the street side, are labelled the homeowner's. A written agreement with the District can change the owner's share. The customer must also remove or repair "any damage to the meter box, meter or piping caused by tree roots or outside improvements surrounding the meter box such as fencing or decorative landscaping". The State's register puts the District's system over nearly all of Foster City, but check the name on your water bill.

Sources

Estero Municipal Improvement District Code chapter 8.12, General Regulations

Also quoted:

Checked

What Estero Municipal Improvement 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.

Estero Municipal Improvement District has classified more of its service lines than most of California: 0.00% of its lines are unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.

Service lines reported
8,213
Still unclassified
0 (0.00%)
Across California, 9.2% of service lines are unclassified.
Share of service lines still unclassified
  • Estero Municipal Improvement District0.00%
  • 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 Foster City's land inside the boundary it maps for Estero Municipal Improvement District. Measured 26 Sep 2026.
  • Classified does not mean inspected. Across California only 22% of service lines were established by field inspection; most of 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.
Estero Municipal Improvement District: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

For the sewer lateral, Estero Municipal Improvement District gives the opposite answer to the one above:

In Foster City the sewer lateral, including its connection to the main sewer, is the property owner's to maintain. The Estero Municipal Improvement District, whose sewer lines the City of Foster City's Public Works Department operates and maintains, provides in section 8.32.100 of its code that "Except as herein provided, building sewers, side sewers, and sewer lateral(s) which serve private property shall be maintained by the owner of the property served."

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

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Foster City, CA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Foster City 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