Who owns the water service line in Poway, CA

Poway draws the line at the "customer handle" on the meter and states both halves. Section 13.11.020 provides that "The City's jurisdiction and responsibility ends at the customer handle connected to the meter. All equipment, including the service line, on the customer's side of the customer handle is the customer's sole responsibility to furnish, install, and maintain." This is Poway's own statement.

Which part of the pipe is yours

Water service line
Yours from the meter to your building
Why, and what to do

The thick length is yours.

Where the responsibility divides

Poway: The service connection from the main up to the customer handle on the meter. Section 13.11.010 defines the customer handle as "the point of connection where the City-maintained water system ends and the customer connection begins", and section 13.11.100 has the service connection "installed from the main to the curb line or property line of the parcel".
The property owner: Everything after the customer handle, the service line into the property included. Section 13.11.020 requires every customer "to maintain their service line and other equipment in good repair and free from leakage at the customer's own expense".
What else is worth knowing: The customer handle - the fitting on the customer side of the meter - is the exact line. The code calls the City's side "City-maintained" rather than stating who owns it, though it treats the meter as City property: the customer is liable for damage "to a meter or other equipment or property owned by the City" caused by the customer or their contractors, and "Only duly authorized employees, contractors, or agents of the City will be permitted to install or remove any service connection, meter, or backflow prevention device." The City's system serves most of Poway, but not every address - check the name on your water bill.

Poway Municipal Code section 13.11.020, Conditions and limitations of service - the City's responsibility ending at the customer handle on the meter, and everything on the customer's side, the service line included, the customer's sole responsibility to furnish, install and maintain. Ord. 697, 2009

Also quoted:

Checked 2026-09-22

What Poway 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.

Poway 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: 14,367
Still unclassified: 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, and this system inspected less than most. Poway 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 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.

Check your address with Poway

Your other pipe has a different answer

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 Poway, CA

How 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.