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Who pays for the sewer lateral in Irwindale, CA

Which part of the pipe is yours

your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours.

If something’s wrong

If a repair needs a permit or an inspection

  • Before work on the pipe · Permit

    Who issues it:
    City of Irwindale city engineer
    What it covers:
    any excavation, fill or obstruction in a street or public right-of-way in the city, and laying, constructing or repairing a public utility system there, which is where the adopted County code puts the lateral

    Irwindale Municipal Code section 12.08.020 provides that no person shall excavate, fill or obstruct, or lay, construct or repair a public utility system among other works, "in, over, along, across, or through any street or public rights-of-way without first obtaining a permit from the city engineer to do so". The City's sewer ordinance, borrowed from the County, puts the house lateral under the street on the owner, so this is the permit an owner needs to dig up the street to reach their own pipe. The City's engineering page describes the permit it issues for work in the street: "Any construction, traffic control, etc. conducted in the public right-of-way requires an Encroachment/Construction Permit."

The repair rule in full, with its sources

No rule on file here is specific to selling, buying, remodelling or adding a unit; that does not mean none exists.

Who to call first about the sewer lateral

BelowGrid has no first-call guidance on file from Irwindale about the sewer lateral.

Irwindale: official site(opens in a new tab)The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

Irwindale writes no sewer ownership rule of its own and borrows the County's. Section 13.04.010 of its municipal code adopts Division 2 of Title 20 of the Los Angeles County Code as the city sanitary sewer and industrial waste ordinance, "including all changes made by the County of Los Angeles, by ordinance, up to and including Ordinance No. 2002-0074, adopted on or about August 22, 2002", and names it as regulating "the design, construction, alteration, use and maintenance of public sewers and house laterals". Inside that adopted division, section 20.24.080 provides that all house laterals "shall be maintained by the owner of the property served in a safe and sanitary condition", and section 20.20.130 defines a "house lateral" as "that part of the sewer piping within the street or right-of-way which extends from the property or sewer right-of-way line to a construction with the main-line sewer". The length the City's ordinance puts on the owner is the length under the road.

The property owner
The run under the street, named as such. Section 20.24.080 assigns house laterals to "the owner of the property served", and section 20.20.130 places that lateral within the street or right-of-way, from the property line to the main-line sewer. Section 20.20.220 defines the main-line sewer independently - one "in which changes in alignment and grade occur only at manholes", adding that such sewers "are generally eight inches or more in diameter" - so the owner's length ends where that pipe begins.

What else is worth knowing

The division assigns the half most owners assume is public and says nothing about the half they assume is theirs. A house lateral begins at the property line, so the run from the building out to that line is not what section 20.24.080 is about - and that silence is not the City taking it on. Section 13.04.020 renames the parties in the borrowed text and rewrites the public sewer as "all sanitary sewers and appurtenances thereto, lying within streets or easements dedicated to the city, which are under the sole jurisdiction of the city", but it does not redefine a house lateral, and the one County section the City deletes, section 20.24.160, is the penalty clause, so the County's assignment reaches the pipe as written. The adoption stops at the County text as amended by its Ordinance 2002-0074, not as the County has amended it since; the owner's duty in section 20.24.080 was last amended in 1989 and so is inside it. Los Angeles County Public Works lists Irwindale among the cities of its Consolidated Sewer Maintenance District with a mark for "Limited services on a contract basis", which says nothing about house laterals. Section 13.04.030 does not force a connection to the sewer on a property of four dwelling units or fewer as it stood when the chapter took effect, so a small older property may still be on a septic tank, which this answer does not reach.

Sources

Irwindale Municipal Code section 13.04.010, Adoption of code

Also quoted:

Checked

What the rules say

Most relevant if you are repairing or replacing the pipe

  • Before work on the pipePermit
    Who issues it:
    City of Irwindale city engineer
    What it covers:
    any excavation, fill or obstruction in a street or public right-of-way in the city, and laying, constructing or repairing a public utility system there, which is where the adopted County code puts the lateral

    Irwindale Municipal Code section 12.08.020 provides that no person shall excavate, fill or obstruct, or lay, construct or repair a public utility system among other works, "in, over, along, across, or through any street or public rights-of-way without first obtaining a permit from the city engineer to do so". The City's sewer ordinance, borrowed from the County, puts the house lateral under the street on the owner, so this is the permit an owner needs to dig up the street to reach their own pipe. The City's engineering page describes the permit it issues for work in the street: "Any construction, traffic control, etc. conducted in the public right-of-way requires an Encroachment/Construction Permit."

    What to do: Before digging in the street to reach a house lateral, apply to the Irwindale city engineer for the permit, and ask whether the plat can be waived for a service connection repair. The contractor will need a current Irwindale business license and a certificate of insurance naming the City, and the procedures sheet asks for notices to neighbours within 300 feet at least 48 hours ahead.

    Why this matters

    A lateral repair is spared one step: section 12.08.040 provides that "When excavations are made for service connections or for the location of trouble in conduits or pipes, or for making repairs thereto, the city engineer may waive the filing of a plat." The deposit is set by formula: section 12.08.080 asks for twice the estimated cost of repairing the street surface, and never less than ten dollars, unless a general deposit, or a bond of at least one thousand dollars, is kept with the city engineer instead. The City's current permit procedures sheet lists a $400 encroachment permit fee, deposits for inspection time, a certificate of liability insurance of at least $1,000,000 naming the City, a traffic control plan, and bilingual notices to residents and businesses within 300 feet at least 48 hours before work starts. For an emergency, section 12.08.290 allows an excavation needed to preserve life or property while the City's offices are closed, if a permit is obtained "within one day after the offices of the city engineer are first opened".

    Current wording dates from · Checked

    Irwindale Municipal Code section 12.08.020, Permit

    Also quoted:

What this page cannot tell you

  • No assistance or grant programme has been reviewed for this jurisdiction yet.
  • No sewer service territory has been mapped for this area, so BelowGrid cannot say who serves an individual address.

Who governs and serves this area

Jurisdiction
Irwindale (municipality)
Sewer service
No map of sewer providers is held here. BelowGrid cannot say which sewer provider serves an individual address.

How this compares to neighbouring cities

1 of the 8 nearest cities draws the line somewhere else. Each authority publishes only its own rule.

Distances are approximate, in a straight line between the places’ centres.

Compare the rules city by city

Nearby cities and further reading

Look up a specific address

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