Find out who supplies your water

Your water bill names your supplier; with no bill, use Pierce County's water purveyor map or the Department of Health's Sentry lookup, because city limits do not decide who serves an address.

Revised November 4, 2026

Which paper names your supplier?

The water bill does. A renter may not see one, since Lakehaven, for example, bills owners and not tenants, so ask the landlord or use a lookup below. A mailing address proves little: a Gig Harbor address can sit on one of several systems.

If no one sends a water bill for the house, it may be on a private or shared well. Turn to testing and rules for private wells.

Lookups that work without a bill

• Pierce County parcels. The county's page says to search its public GIS map by parcel or address, then select Utilities and Water Purveyors.
• State records. The Department of Health says Sentry Internet finds the system supplying your home and its testing results. A precise search needs the system name or ID number. Otherwise enter what you know, choose your county and pick from the list.
• City and district maps. Gig Harbor publishes a purveyor service area map, Puyallup a water purveyors map, and Kitsap PUD a boundary map.
• A person. The department's Help Desk answers email data requests within two business days, by its own account. Requests that go to county-assigned staff can take four to six weeks.

City, district, company, mutual: what the names mean

Each name tells you who runs the system. All of them differ from your own well, where the Department of Health makes you responsible for testing.

• City or town utility. Fircrest and Milton run their own wells. Fife and Steilacoom buy water from elsewhere and deliver it themselves.
• Water district. Lakewood Water District and Lakehaven Water & Sewer District are separate from the cities they serve.
• Public utility district. Kitsap PUD runs 51 domestic systems, all on wells.
• Electric utility with a water side. Peninsula Light, mainly an electric utility, also runs water systems.
• Company. Washington Water reports about 200 Washington systems, with customer centers in Gig Harbor and East Pierce.
• Member-owned cooperative or mutual. Fruitland Mutual has worked this way since 1946 and Summit since 1923.

The source differs too: Tacoma Water relies mostly on the Green River, Puyallup on springs and wells, and Fircrest on wells alone. That is why published hardness and iron figures don't carry from one system to the next.

Where the supplier's pipe stops

Each supplier sets this for itself, and the Tacoma rule is the plainest one we found. Tacoma Public Utilities owns and maintains the main, the service line and the meter, and the customer owns the service lines and plumbing on the property side.

Lakewood Water District's page says customer responsibility begins at the connection on the customer's side of the meter. We could not confirm a plain statement for Port Orchard, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, Puyallup, Federal Way, Fruitland, Washington Water or the peninsula systems, so ask yours and don't assume Tacoma's rule. Lakehaven's FAQ adds that the district does no plumbing repairs.

Learn the line before a leak, and before looking into lead and old service lines. Sprinklers bring your supplier in through backflow rules for irrigation. Sheets such as Fircrest and South Hill list the offices.