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Who owns the water service line in Moreno Valley, CA

Which part of the pipe is yours

  • Water service line

    Yours from the meter to your building

    Why, and what to do
  • Sewer lateral

    Yours all the way to the main, including the fitting where it joins — if certain conditions are met

    Why, and what to do
your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours. A dashed marker means the position depends on your property — see below.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

BelowGrid has no first-call guidance on file from Eastern Municipal Water District about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

Eastern Municipal Water District owns the water service connection from its main to and including your meter, and its Administrative Code says "the expense of maintenance, repairs, and renewal of such service connections and meters, due to normal wear and tear, shall be borne by the District". Your side starts at the meter: "water pipes and appurtenances downstream of the meter are the property of the customer who is responsible for water use, operation and maintenance." Note that the same District answers the opposite way for your sewer lateral, which is yours the whole way to the main. This is Eastern Municipal Water District's own statement.

Eastern Municipal Water District
The service connection and the meter, owned and kept up at the District's own expense. Administrative Code section 5.104(c) provides that "service connections and water meters installed or accepted for use by the District are the property of the District", and that "the expense of maintenance, repairs, and renewal of such service connections and meters, due to normal wear and tear, shall be borne by the District". Section 5.506, "Ownership of Service Connections", repeats both. The Code's definition of a service connection is the piping and appurtenances necessary to "deliver water from the District's water main to a Customer's property, including the meter, meter box, valves, and appurtenant equipment within the meter box".
The property owner
Everything downstream of the meter. Section 5.104(c) states that "water pipes and appurtenances downstream of the meter are the property of the customer who is responsible for water use, operation and maintenance". Under section 5.106(b) the applicant designs the run from the point of connection onwards, service lateral, meter and "all post-meter piping and appurtenances", so that pressure and flow at each floor meet the requirements of whoever issues the building permit. Where District pressure falls below 50 psi or rises above 80 psi, the customer is "responsible for installing devices, inclusive of pressure regulation devices and/or pressure boosting devices, and any other applicable devices, at their cost", and shall "own, operate, maintain, repair" them.

What else is worth knowing

Two things decide what you pay, and one of them is which valve you touch. The District's expense covers maintenance, repairs and renewal of its own connection and meter only where they are "due to normal wear and tear", so damage from something done on your side is not on that list. And section 5.505 puts a valve either side of your meter: "District shut-off valves are installed for the use of the District and will usually be found immediately adjacent to the street side of the meter", while "the District usually provides a valve on the Customer's side of each meter. This valve is for the Customer's use, and may be operated at the Customer's convenience." The street-side one is not yours to turn. One more thing worth knowing if this District answers for both your pipes: they divide in opposite places. Your water service is the District's to the meter; your sewer lateral is your property all the way to the District's main, connection included, with the District repairing the stretch under the street but not maintaining it. So a quotation for "the line to the street" means very different work depending on which pipe is meant. The sewer answer is on this District's own page in full. In Perris, not every address is the District's: the City of Perris runs its own water system over part of the city, and the North Perris water system over another small part - if either bills you, its own rules apply. In Moreno Valley the State's register puts Box Springs Mutual Water Company over about 1% of the city and Western Municipal Water District over about 1%; if either of those bills you, its own rules apply, not these.

Sources

Eastern Municipal Water District Administrative Code (revised 24 June 2026)

Also quoted:

Checked

What Eastern 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.

Eastern 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.

Service lines reported
165,510
Still unclassified
0 (0.00%)
Across California, 9.2% of service lines are unclassified.
Share of service lines still unclassified
  • Eastern Municipal Water District0.00%
  • 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.
  • 165,510 is the whole of Eastern 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, and this system inspected less than most. Eastern Municipal Water District established 3.0% 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.
Eastern Municipal Water District: official site

Where else this answer applies

Eastern Municipal Water District also supplies the place below, and the statement above governs it too:

It settles the sewer lateral separately, often under a different authority from this one.

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

For the sewer lateral, Moreno Valley says:

Two agencies collect sewage in Moreno Valley. The City's MoVal 2040 draft environmental impact report says "Wastewater service in the Planning Area is provided by two agencies: EMWD provides collection and treatment for most of the city", while the Edgemont Community Services District "serves a 430-acre area in the western portion of the city that includes the Edgemont neighborhood". For Eastern Municipal Water District customers the lateral is the owner's pipe all the way to the main: the District's Administrative Code says "All completed Sewer Service Laterals shall remain the property of the Customer", and the length under the street "includes the connection to the Sewer Pipeline". The owner keeps all of it clear, and the District repairs the length under the street at its own expense unless, as the District determines, roots or debris from the property caused the damage or the owner otherwise contributed to it. In the Edgemont district the dividing point is a cleanout at the property line where there is one; without one the owner keeps the whole lateral clear to the main, as set out below.

Your sewer lateral is yours to the main, fitting included; your water line stops being yours at the meter.

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Moreno Valley, CA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Moreno Valley 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