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Who owns the water service line in Monterey Park, 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 Monterey Park about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

The City keeps the service line up to the meter as its own, with a repair duty attached. Section 14.08.110 provides that "The water service line (upstream of the meter), meter, meter box and appurtenances" "shall remain the property of the water department and shall be maintained, renewed and repaired by the water department when rendered unserviceable through fair wear and tear". This is Monterey Park's own statement.

Monterey Park
The service line from the main to the meter, the meter, the meter box and their appurtenances, as property and as a repair duty. The same section fixes the exact point: "Water services are the property of the water department up to and including the downstream meter coupling/flange for metered services".
The property owner
Everything after the meter's downstream coupling. Section 14.08.090 calls these "those water pipes on the customer's side of the water meter", and when they leak and the customer does not repair them, "the water department may give the customer thirty days' notice to make such repairs"; if the repairs are not made, the water service to the property may be shut off.

What else is worth knowing

The City's duty is for fair wear and tear. Under section 14.08.110, where repairs to a meter or its appurtenances are made necessary "by the act, negligence or carelessness of the consumer", the expense is charged to the consumer or owner "in the same manner as a water bill". The shut-off valve on your side is yours to provide: section 14.08.220 requires one "installed at the expense of the consumer, or owner", located "inside the property line and on the street side of any fixture including sprinklers". Check the name on your water bill first. The City's system covers about nine tenths of Monterey Park; some addresses are served by California Water Service or by San Gabriel Valley Water Company instead, and for them these sections do not apply - their own rules, filed with the Public Utilities Commission, do.

Sources

Monterey Park Municipal Code section 14.08.110, Property of water department

Also quoted:

Checked

What Monterey Park 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.

Monterey Park has classified less of its network than most of California: 89.6% of its service lines are still unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.

Service lines reported
13,590
Still unclassified
12,178 (89.6%)
Across California, 9.2% of service lines are unclassified.
Share of service lines still unclassified
  • Monterey Park89.6%
  • 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 89% of Monterey Park's land inside the boundary it maps for the city's own water system. Within the same city limits it also maps "CALIFORNIA WATER SERVICE CO. - ELA" (8%), "SAN GABRIEL VALLEY WATER CO.-EL MONTE" (2%). 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, and this system inspected less than most. Monterey Park established 0.0% 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.
Monterey Park: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

The sewer lateral leaving your property is a separate pipe, run by a separate authority, and who is responsible for it is decided separately. In many places the two answers are opposites.

Sewer lateral requirements in Monterey Park, CA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Monterey Park 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