Who owns the water service line in Livingston, CA
Which part of the pipe is yours
Yours from the meter to your building
Why, and what to doYours all the way to the main under the road
Why, and what to do
If something’s wrong
Who to call first about the water service line
Who is responsible for which part
Livingston draws the water line at the meter box. Section 9-5-17 provides that "The city's responsibility for all water service lines is from the connection at the city's main water line to the water meter box", and that "From the water meter box to the customer's premises is the sole responsibility of the customer to install, own, maintain and/or replace." This is Livingston's own statement.
- Livingston
- The water service line from the connection at the City's main to the water meter box.
- The property owner
- The line from the meter box to the premises, which the customer installs, owns, maintains and replaces.
What else is worth knowing
Sources
Livingston Municipal Code section 9-5-17, Responsibility of service lines and house linesWhat Livingston 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.
Livingston has classified less of its network than most of California: 100.0% of its service lines are still unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.
- 3,590
- 3,589 (100.0%)
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 96% of Livingston's land inside the boundary it maps for the city's own water system. A share of land is not a share of homes: open space counts the same as a dense block. 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. 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.
Your other pipe: the sewer lateral
For the sewer lateral, Livingston gives the opposite answer to the one above:
Livingston puts the whole lateral on the owner, out to the main under the street. Section 9-6-32 provides that "The property owner shall be responsible for the maintenance of the complete lateral connection to the street sewer main, including the portion of such lateral placed in the public right-of-way or easement."
Your sewer lateral is yours to the main; your water line stops being yours at the meter.
Who pays for the sewer lateral in Livingston, CALook up a specific address
This page describes what applies to properties in Livingston in general. To see which authorities serve one address, and what records exist for it, search for it.
Search for an addressHow this compares across California
- Why your two pipes disagree — the places where the sewer and water authorities contradict each other about the run beneath the road.
- Which water systems know what is buried — how much of each California system’s network the utility can actually identify.