Who owns the water service line in Mill Valley, 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, including the fitting where it joins
Why, and what to do
If something’s wrong
Who to call first about the water service line
Who is responsible for which part
Marin Water owns and maintains the service line from the main to and including the meter. The pipe from the meter to the building is the property owner's. This is Marin Municipal Water District's own statement.
- Marin Municipal Water District
- The District states that "the service line leading to your property is owned and maintained by Marin Water, as is the water meter" - the run from the main in the street, and the meter itself.
- The property owner
- The District states that "the pipe that runs from the meter to your home belongs to you and is your responsibility", and answers the leak question directly: "you are responsible for any leaks on your side of the water meter. Your water service begins at your water meter."
What else is worth knowing
Sources
Marin Water, Frequently Asked Questions - Customer ServiceWhat Marin Municipal Water 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.
Marin Municipal Water District has classified more of its service lines than most of California: 0.00% of its lines are unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.
- 63,060
- 0 (0.00%)
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 Mill Valley's land inside the boundary it maps for Marin Municipal Water District. Measured 25 Sep 2026.
- 63,060 is the whole of Marin Municipal Water District's reported inventory, not this city alone. The State's file records no city for these lines, so they cannot be counted per city.
- 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.
Where else this answer applies
Marin Municipal Water District also supplies the places below, and the statement above governs them too:
Each of them settles the sewer lateral separately, often under a different authority from this one.
Your other pipe: the sewer lateral
For the sewer lateral, Mill Valley gives the opposite answer to the one above:
The property owner maintains the whole lateral to the City main, expressly including the run within the right-of-way and the fitting where it branches off the main.
Your sewer lateral is yours to the main, fitting included; your water line stops being yours at the meter.
Who pays for the sewer lateral in Mill Valley, CALook up a specific address
This page describes what applies to properties in Mill Valley 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.