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Who owns the water service line in Olympia, WA

Which part of the pipe is yours

  • Water service line

    Yours from your property line to your building

    Why, and what to do
  • Sewer lateral

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

    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 Olympia about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

Olympia maintains the water service connection, which runs from the tap on the main through the meter to the property line. Section 13.04.200(B) of the Olympia Municipal Code provides that the connection "must thereafter be maintained by and kept within the exclusive control of the City", and section 13.04.020 defines the service connection as including "the tap into the main, the water meter and appurtenances, and the service line from the main to the meter and from the meter to the property line." This is Olympia's own statement.

Olympia
The service connection: the tap into the main, the meter and appurtenances, and the service line from the main to the meter and from the meter to the property line.
The property owner
The supply pipe on the premises, from the property line to the building.

What else is worth knowing

The dividing point is the property line, where the City's service connection meets the supply system on the premises. The customer must keep the meter and meter box clear so City staff can reach the meter at all times. About 99% of Olympia'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. Check the name on your water bill.

Sources

Olympia Municipal Code sections 13.04.200, Service connections

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.

Olympia: 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 Olympia'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.
Olympia: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

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

In Olympia the City owns a gravity side sewer from the main to the right-of-way line where there is a cleanout at that point, and the owner owns the rest; without that cleanout the owner owns the side sewer all the way to the main. Section 13.08.040(B) of the Olympia Municipal Code provides that "City ownership of a gravity side sewer is from the sewer main to the right-of-way line or sewer easement boundary, if a cleanout exists at this point."

Both pipes divide in the same place here — the property line.

Same trench, separate authorities, decided separately.

Who pays for the sewer lateral in Olympia, WA

Look up a specific address

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

Search for an address