Who owns the water service line in Santa Clara, CA
Santa Clara owns the water service connection all the way to and including your meter - even where it crosses your own land under an easement - and its Rules say it "will be repaired and maintained by the City at its expense". Your side is everything past it, "regardless of the location of the meters". That is the opposite of your sewer lateral here, which is yours the whole way to the main. This is Santa Clara'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 under the road
Why, and what to do
Where the responsibility divides
- Santa Clara
- The service connection from the distribution line to the meter, owned and repaired at the City's own expense. The City's Water System Rules and Regulations provide that "the Service Connection, whether located on public rights-of-way or easements through private property, is the property of the City", and that it "including the meter and the meter box, will be repaired and maintained by the City at its expense except for damages as set forth in Section 13". The Rules define that connection to include "all or any portion of the water pipe and Appurtenances, including the meter, between the City distribution line and an individual Customer's system", and add that it "and all equipment Appurtenant thereto shall be the sole property of the City, and no part of the cost thereof will be refunded to the applicant".
- The property owner
- Everything past the service connection, wherever the meter happens to be. Section 13.A requires the Customer "at the Customer's risk and expense, [to] furnish, install and keep in good and safe condition equipment and suitable housings that may be required for receiving, controlling, applying and utilizing water, regardless of the location of the meters, or other City Equipment", and relieves the City of liability for loss or damage caused by the Customer's own installation, negligence or want of proper care.
- What else is worth knowing
- Two things are worth knowing. The first is that the City's expense does not cover damage you cause: section 14.G repairs and maintains the service connection at City expense "except for damages as set forth in Section 13", and section 13.A puts the risk and expense of the customer's own equipment on the customer, including loss or damage from "the negligence, want of proper care or wrongful act of the Customer or of any of the Customer's tenants, agents, employees, contractors, licensees or Permittees". The second is that moving things is at your cost: under section 14.C "meters or services moved for the convenience of the Customer will be relocated at the Customer's expense", and under 14.D a change in meter size is likewise at the customer's expense with the monthly rate adjusted afterwards. Note also that your two pipes divide in opposite places in Santa Clara - the water service is the City's to the meter, while your sewer lateral is yours all the way to the City-owned main - so a quotation for "the line to the street" means very different work depending on which pipe is meant.
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, Santa Clara gives the opposite answer to the one above:
The whole pipe is yours, all the way to the City main, and the code says so in its definition: "each sewer lateral is owned by the entity that owns the property". No cleanout changes that. What a cleanout does change is what the City will do for you - with one at the property line, a City crew will check and clear the lower half at no charge; without one, the City says it "will not be able to assess the condition of the lower lateral to the main".
Your sewer lateral is yours to the main; your water line stops being yours at the meter.
Who pays for the sewer lateral in Santa Clara, 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.