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Who owns the water service line in Centralia, WA

Which part of the pipe is yours

your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

BelowGrid has no first-call guidance on file from Centralia about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

Centralia owns and maintains the water service up to and including the meter; the owner maintains the pipe from the meter to the premises. Section 15.04.390 of the Centralia Municipal Code provides that "The city shall own, operate, control, and maintain all pipe, fittings, and connections from the water main up to and including the meter." This is Centralia's own statement.

Centralia
All pipe, fittings and connections from the water main up to and including the meter, wherever the meter is - on private property, in a vault, in a building or in the public right-of-way.
The property owner
All pipe and fittings from the meter to the premises. Section 15.04.390 provides that "The property owner shall be responsible for maintenance of all pipe and fittings from the meter to their premise."

What else is worth knowing

The dividing point is the meter. About 88% of Centralia's land is inside the City's water service area as the Washington State Department of Health maps it, and this answer applies only inside that area. About 12% of the city has no published water service area over it, which is not a rival utility and not necessarily unserved. Check the name on your water bill.

Sources

Centralia Municipal Code section 15.04.390

Checked

What the pipe is made of

Washington publishes no statewide inventory of what service lines are made of. Each water system filed its own with the State, and federal rules require the utility to make it public, so the utility is the place to ask what is recorded for this address.

Centralia: official site

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.
  • This answer applies inside the area the State maps for Centralia's own water system, which does not follow the city limits: some addresses in the city are served by another supplier, and some outside it are served by the city. An address search checks which side an address is on.
  • 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.
Centralia: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

For the sewer lateral, Centralia gives the opposite answer to the one above:

In Centralia the owner bears the cost of the whole side sewer, which runs from the building drain to the public sewer. Section 15.10.110(A) of the Centralia Municipal Code provides that "All costs and expenses related to the installation and connection, operation and maintenance, and replacement of the side sewer, including backflow devices, where required, shall be borne by the owner."

Your sewer lateral is yours to the main; your water line stops being yours at the meter.

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Centralia, WA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Centralia in general. To see which authorities serve one address, and what records exist for it, search for it.

Search for an address