Lubbock, TX Water Use Rules: Leak Reporting Duty (2026)

010, Responsibility for leakage, places the loss squarely on the customer's side of the meter: property owners, their agents and tenants are held responsible as consumers for water lost to leakage in pipe or plumbing inside the discharge side of the meter or on the property. If that lost water is not paid for at the rates then in effect when the bill comes due, the water department will cut off service and will not restore it until all claims are paid or adjusted to the water department's satisfaction.

The section specifically addresses rental turnover: when a tenant changes on rented property and arrearages exist for past leakage, the landlord and property owner are held to account for that leakage before the water department extends service to the incoming tenant. The section dates to Ordinance 444 in 1929 and has carried through the 1959, 1983 and current codifications unchanged. 003 defines nonessential water use, which is restricted or prohibited water use under the plan, to include the failure to repair a leak within a reasonable period of time after having been given notice directing the repair.

043, monitors the transmission, storage, delivery and distribution system for leaks through routine meter reading and surveillance, and states that any reported leaks are repaired by the city in a timely manner, while wholesale water customers manage their own leak detection, location and repair programs on their side.