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Who owns the water service line in Long Beach, 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 Long Beach about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

The Department owns the water service connection including the meter and meter box, "whether located on public or private property", and maintains, repairs and renews it at its own expense. The shut-off valve in the meter box is to be operated only by Department personnel. This is Long Beach's own statement.

Long Beach
The whole service connection, owned and kept up at the Department's cost. Section 205.7 states that "the service connection, including the meter and meter box, are the property of the Department, whether located on public or private property", and that "the Department will maintain, repair and renew the service connection at its expense". Section 205.8 adds that the shut-off valve in the meter box "shall be operated only by Department personnel".
The property owner
The plumbing beyond the meter. The Department's ownership runs to and includes the meter and meter box, so the house side of it is the customer's - though the Rules state that boundary by describing what the Department owns rather than by assigning the remainder, so this is the ordinary reading of where its property stops rather than a sentence the Department wrote about yours.

What else is worth knowing

Nothing conditions the Department's side, and that is the point worth taking away: its pipe is its own "whether located on public or private property", so a service line crossing your front garden does not become yours by being on your land. Leave the shut-off valve in the meter box alone - the Rules reserve it to Department personnel. And note that the Department renews as well as repairs, so an aged service line between the main and the meter is its replacement to make, not yours to fund. Your other pipe agrees: the same department maintains the sewer house connection from your property line to the main.

Sources

Long Beach Utilities, Rules and Regulations (2024)

Checked

What Long Beach 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.

Long Beach 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
89,524
Still unclassified
0 (0.00%)
Across California, 9.2% of service lines are unclassified.
Share of service lines still unclassified
  • Long Beach0.00%
  • 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 99% of Long Beach's land inside the boundary it maps for the city's own water system. Measured 25 Sep 2026.
  • Classified does not mean inspected, and this system inspected less than most. Long Beach established 5.3% 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.
Long Beach: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

For the sewer lateral, Long Beach says:

Long Beach maintains the sewer pipe under the street. Its code makes the owner responsible for the building sewer and then, "notwithstanding" that, has the Water Department maintain the house connection from the property line to the main - including the wye or saddle at the main, and with no cleanout condition attached.

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

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Long Beach, CA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Long Beach 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