Who owns the water service line in Monrovia, CA
Monrovia's Utility Department owns and repairs the service connection, meter included, wherever it runs. Section 13.04.110 provides that "The service connection, whether located on public or private property, is the property of the city", and that "The service connection, including the meter and the meter box, shall be repaired and maintained by the Utility Department at its expense, except for damage caused by determinable negligence." This is Monrovia's own statement.
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
Where the responsibility divides
- Monrovia
- The service from the main to the curb and the meter, the meter box and their fittings. Section 13.04.110 provides that the service "shall be installed from the water distribution main to curbline" and that "Meters shall be installed at the curb and shall be owned by the city."
- The property owner
- The water line from the meter at the curb into the property. Section 13.04.110 provides that "The Department shall not be responsible for the installation and maintenance of waterlines beyond the end of its service."
- What else is worth knowing
- The meter at the curb is the line: before it, a leak is the Utility Department's to repair at its own expense; after it, the pipe is yours. The one exception on the City's side is "damage caused by determinable negligence", which is charged to whoever caused it - section 13.04.280 makes the customer liable for damage to a meter or other City property caused by the customer or their contractors. Check the name on your water bill first: the City supplies almost all of Monrovia, but a small area is served by California American Water, whose own rules apply there.
What Monrovia has told the State
Federal rules required every community water system to inventory its service lines and publish the result. These are the figures this one filed.
Monrovia has classified more of its service lines than most of California: 0.00% of its lines are unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.
- 9,447
- 0 (0.00%)
What this does not 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.
- 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 2026-09-04. They may not reflect its current inventory - the system's own page is the place to confirm anything about a specific address.
Your other pipe has a different answer
For the sewer lateral, Monrovia gives the opposite answer to the one above:
Monrovia puts the whole lateral and its junction with the main on the owner. Section 13.12.040 provides that "All sewer laterals shall be maintained by the owner of the property served by such lateral in a safe and sanitary operating condition so that there is no seepage of waste at any point up to and including the junction of the sewer lateral and the sewer 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 Monrovia, CAHow 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.