Appleton, WI Water Use Rules: Leak Reporting Duty (2026)

Appleton Municipal Code § 20-39 addresses leaks in privately owned water pipes with a single directive: where a leak develops in a privately owned line, the Water Utility follows its approved water leak policy. Adopted by Ordinance 23-520 in 2020, the section keeps the specific repair, notice and billing procedures in a Water Utility policy document rather than spelling them out in the ordinance text itself, so a resident with a private-side leak deals directly with the Water Utility's process rather than a court-facing deadline in the code.

The section sits in Article II, Water Utility, alongside related provisions: § 20-33 gives Water Utility employees a right of access at proper times to inspect meters and fixtures and lets the City shut off water where access is refused, and § 20-34 authorizes the Utility to discontinue service on any premises where a water charge goes unpaid for thirty days after a statement is rendered, with a reconnection charge due before service resumes. Section 20-31 makes any violation of Article II, including a failure to cooperate with the leak policy under § 20-39, subject to the City's general penalty under § 1-16: a forfeiture of between one and two hundred dollars plus costs of prosecution for a first offense, and between ten and five hundred dollars for a repeat offense of the same provision.