Four towns we work in changed who is allowed to own or run a utility under their streets, all of it inside the last two years, and none of it announced in a way a homeowner would notice. The record is public: a municipal consent ordinance, then a Board of Public Utilities docket. Here is each one, what it actually says, and what it changes at a house.
Manville: the borough sold its sewer
New Jersey American Water completed its purchase of the Borough of Manville's wastewater collection system on 1 November 2024 for $6.5 million, taking on roughly 4,300 customers, and committed to a minimum of $10 million in wastewater system improvements over the ten years that follow.
What changes at a house: a lateral problem in Manville is now a call to a regulated utility rather than to borough hall, and a contractor opening the street is coordinating with a water company rather than a public works department. The ten years of committed main work is the part worth knowing before anybody digs a lateral on an old block, because the cheapest version of that job is the one that happens while the street is already open.
Hillsborough: part of the township went with it
Hillsborough adopted Ordinance 2024-06 on 11 June 2024, granting municipal consent to New Jersey-American Water to construct, lay, maintain and operate wastewater mains in the portion of the township formerly served by the Borough of Manville. The company petitioned the Board on 9 September 2024 under docket WE24090674, and the public hearing was held on 7 January 2025. The notice states that no increase in rates results from the petition.
What changes at a house: if the property sits in that former-Manville pocket, the utility to call about the main is not the one it was two years ago. The rest of the township is unaffected, which is exactly why this is worth checking rather than assuming.
Worth knowing either way: sewage from the sewered part of Hillsborough is treated by the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewerage Authority, a 23.0 MGD plant that has served Branchburg, Bridgewater, Hillsborough, Manville, Raritan, Somerville and Warren since 1958. SRVSA states plainly that it does not own the collection system of any township it serves, so the main in front of the house, and the records of it, belong to the municipality.
Vernon: the water franchise grew
Veolia already held a franchise to provide water in certain parts of Vernon. On 9 December 2024 the township adopted Municipal Consent Ordinance No. 24-16 letting the company expand that franchise to more properties and lay the pipe needed to serve them. The Board approved it on 13 August 2025, effective the 20th, under docket WO25020098, and the consent to use the streets runs fifty years from that date.
What changes at a house: on a water service job in Vernon the first question is which side of the franchise line the property sits on, because the answer can be Veolia, another system, or a private well, and it is no longer the same answer it was for some addresses.
Chester Township: gas, where there was none
On 15 July 2025 Chester Township adopted Ordinance No. 2025-12 granting New Jersey Natural Gas a franchise to provide natural gas service and to use the township's roads and streets to do it, limited to fifty years. The Board approved it on 4 March 2026, effective the 11th, under docket GE25070390.
Read that for exactly what it says. The Board wrote that approval of the municipal consent does not constitute approval of any specific main extension or plan for service. It is permission to serve the township, not a schedule for any particular road. What it does mean is that streets with no gas in them today may not stay that way, and a yard that has never needed a gas markout may start getting one.
Why any of this matters before you dig
Three practical things follow from a franchise or ownership change, and all of them cost money when they are wrong.
You call the wrong office. The fastest way to lose a day is to report a main break or request a connection to a body that no longer owns the pipe. When a system changes hands, the phone number on the bill changes before the number in anybody's head does.
The markout changes. A new utility in the street means new facilities to mark. Ground that was cleanly marked last year is not the same ground, and the two foot tolerance zone applies to the new lines exactly as it does to the old ones.
Timing beats price. Where a utility has committed to capital work, a lateral or service replacement done while the street is already open is a different number from the same job done two years later through new pavement, and most towns have a moratorium on opening a freshly paved road.
If you want to know what is under a particular street, the sourced starting points are who supplies water in New Jersey, town by town and the coverage figures on each of our town pages. For anything that needs the pipe exposed rather than looked up, that is our work: sewer and water lines, service replacements, and the permits and restoration that go with them.