Who owns the water service line in Pacifica, 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
North Coast County Water District maintains its system up to and including the meter, and customers maintain everything past it. The District's Board resolution on leak adjustments records that "the District generally is responsible for the repair and maintenance of its water distribution system up to and including the water meters installed to serve District customers". This is North Coast County Water District's own statement.
- North Coast County Water District
- The water distribution system up to and including the meters serving District customers, repaired and maintained by the District.
- The property owner
- "District customers are responsible for the repair and maintenance of the water system and plumbing facilities from the water meter to and including the plumbing fixtures in the customer's residence or building".
What else is worth knowing
Sources
North Coast County Water District, Resolution No. 1011What North Coast County 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.
North Coast County Water District has classified more of its service lines than most of California: 0.00% of its lines are unclassified, against 9.2% statewide.
- 12,283
- 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 81% of Pacifica's land inside the boundary it maps for North Coast County Water District. A share of land is not a share of homes: open space counts the same as a dense block. Measured 25 Sep 2026.
- 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.
Your other pipe: the sewer lateral
For the sewer lateral, Pacifica gives the opposite answer to the one above:
Pacifica puts the whole lateral - both halves and the connection to the main - on the owner. Section 6-13.602 provides that "It shall be the responsibility of the property owner to perform all required maintenance, repairs and replacement of the sewer lateral", and section 6-13.601 defines the sewer lateral as "the upper and lower sections of sewer pipe that carry sewage and liquid waste from the building or structure served, up to and including 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 Pacifica, CALook up a specific address
This page describes what applies to properties in Pacifica 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.