Who owns the water service line in Woodlake, CA
Which part of the pipe is yours
Yours from the meter to your building
Why, and what to doYours from your property line to your building
Why, and what to do
If something’s wrong
Who to call first about the water service line
Who is responsible for which part
Woodlake keeps the service connection and meter, and the owner keeps the line from the meter to the building. Section 13.04.050 provides that "the city shall be responsible for subsequent maintenance of the service connection and water meter, and the landowner shall retain responsibility for maintenance of the service lateral connecting the landowner's building(s) or other facilities to the city's water meter." This is Woodlake's own statement.
- Woodlake
- The service connection - "the components and materials installed that establish a connection from a water meter to the city's water supply and distribution system" - and the water meter.
- The property owner
- The service lateral from the meter to the building. "All persons taking water must keep their own service line from city valve at property line to house connection in good order and free from leaks".
What else is worth knowing
Sources
Woodlake Municipal Code section 13.04.050, Installation and/or connection of service connectionsWhat Woodlake 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.
11.7% of Woodlake's service lines are unclassified, close to the 9.2% recorded across California.
- 2,133
- 249 (11.7%)
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 74% of Woodlake's land inside the boundary it maps for the city's own water system. A share of land is not a share of homes: open space counts the same as a dense block. Measured 25 Sep 2026.
- Unclassified means nobody has established what the pipe is made of. It does not mean lead was found.
- Classified does not mean inspected, and this system inspected less than most. Woodlake 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 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, Woodlake says:
Woodlake splits the lateral at the public right-of-way. Section 13.20.050 provides that "Individual property owners shall be responsible for the installation, maintenance and repair of service lines, excluding that portion that is within the public R.O.W.", and section 13.20.060 that "The city shall be responsible for the maintenance and repair of sewer main lines and laterals in city right-of-way".
Your sewer lateral is yours to the property line; your water line stops being yours at the meter.
Who pays for the sewer lateral in Woodlake, CALook up a specific address
This page describes what applies to properties in Woodlake 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.