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Who owns the water service line in Monroe, WA

Which part of the pipe is yours

  • Water service line

    Yours from your property line to your building — if certain conditions are met

    Why, and what to do
  • Sewer lateral

    Yours all the way to the main under the road

    Why, and what to do
your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours. A dashed marker means the position depends on your property — see below.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

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

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

Monroe connects premises to its water main by a service pipe to the property line, with a meter and stopcock in the street, and keeps that connection. Section 23.50.030 of the Monroe Municipal Code provides that the connection "shall thereafter be maintained and kept within the exclusive control and ownership of the city". This is Monroe's own statement.

Monroe
The service connection: a service pipe "extending at right angles from the main to the property line", including a meter and stopcock placed within the lines of the street or curb.
The property owner
The code does not say in terms who maintains the pipe beyond the City's connection at the property line.

What decides which applies

The City's connection runs from the main to the property line. Where the connection cannot be protected within the street, or the main is on private land, the code lets the City enter the premises to install and maintain the connection there. Nothing in the code says who repairs the pipe on the property; ask the City's public works department before paying for work on it. About 94% of Monroe'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; Roosevelt Water Association serves about 4% under its own rules. Check the name on your water bill.

Sources

Monroe Municipal Code section 23.50.030

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.

Monroe: 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 Monroe'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.
Monroe: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

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

In Monroe the property owner maintains the lateral side sewer from its connection with the main line sewer to the building; the City maintains the main line sewer. Section 13.08.035 of the Monroe Municipal Code provides that "The property owner(s) served by the lateral side sewer shall be responsible for the maintenance of the lateral side sewer from the connection with the main line sewer to the house or building."

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

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Monroe, WA

Look up a specific address

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

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