Who owns the water service line in Oxnard, CA
In Oxnard the water service and the meter are the City's, outright: "all services and meters shall remain the property of the water division", and the division bears "the expense of maintenance, repair and renewal due to normal wear and tear". Damage caused by an act of yours - "careless or otherwise" - is charged back to you. That is the reverse of Oxnard's sewer answer, where the owner maintains the lateral and the fitting at the main. This is Oxnard'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
- Oxnard
- The service and the meter, owned as well as maintained. Section 22-27 states that "all services and meters shall remain the property of the water division", and that "the expense of maintenance, repair and renewal due to normal wear and tear shall be borne by the water division" - with an exception for "expenses incurred by an act, careless or otherwise on the part of the customer, or any member of his/her family, or any person in his/her employ, or any of his tenants", which are charged to the customer.
- The property owner
- The plumbing past the meter. The code never fixes that point, but the City's water design and construction standards do, and they are the City's own document: the public facilities the City operates take in "water services from the public water mains to the City meters", and the same paragraph promises that "the City shall operate, maintain, and repair its facilities". What the code adds is the owner's side of two duties: the cost of any damage to the service or meter caused by an act of the customer, their family, employee or tenant "careless or otherwise", and keeping "the space about the meter, the shut-off box, and all backflow and cross-contamination prevention devices serving the property free and clean of any material or obstruction".
- What else is worth knowing
- The boundary and the money are written in two different documents here, and it is worth knowing which is which. The code assigns ownership and upkeep and never names a point; the point is in the City's water design and construction standards, which take the City's public facilities as far as the City meters. One caveat in the City's own standards, published rather than smoothed over: in the single case of replacing an old flat-rate service, they describe the work as ending at a "connection to the customer's service at property line", which names the property line and not the meter. For everything else the meter is the point, and the standards also require the service line "from the main up to and including the meter box" to sit within the water easement. Two things the code says are worth money. Damage to the service or the meter caused by an act of yours, your family, an employee or a tenant is charged to you whether or not anyone was careless - the words are "careless or otherwise" - so a trencher through the service line on your instructions is your bill even though the pipe is the City's. And you must keep the space around the meter and the shut-off box clear; on 24 hours' notice the division may clear it itself and charge you the cost "plus any administrative expenses".
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.
- This authority's service line inventory - the record of which pipes are lead, and where - has not been matched here yet. Ask the utility for yours.
Your other pipe has a different answer
For the sewer lateral, Oxnard gives the opposite answer to the one above:
The owner pays to maintain the lateral and the fitting where it meets the main. Oxnard's code is one sentence - "all connections, including the lateral, wye or saddle at the city's sewer, shall be maintained at the expense of the property owner" - and the City's own flyer draws it: the private sewer lateral "extends past the private property line and into the public right-of-way" and "includes the connection to the public sewer".
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 Oxnard, 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.