Wow, that is a shitty wat to start...only a little exp. in this myself, here the water meters are in the middle of the front yard, & anything that breaks on my side of the meter is my responsibility & anything on the street side is the water co.'s baby, so to speak...that's what happened in my last house, the libe crack on the st. side, my first hint was the sound of water running somewhere in the house, but nothing was on...a check out my front door revealed a small river running down the hill onto the street. As I say, not my financial responsibility, & the small amount of grass torn up soon grew back...my neighbor, OTOH, just had his entire line replaced a few months back, & did involve tearing the shit out of his front yard...sorry I didn't ask him what the cost to him would be, & he doesn't do a lot of landscaping (with 2 small boys, that would be futile) so there was a lot of straw & seed thrown down after (most of which washed away in the next big rain)...one hope you might have, I think they have ways to dig under sidewalks & other pavements, so you might look for someone who work with you on that...but I know, when the water main breaks, your 1st concern is to get it fixed so you can use your own bathroom again...
PS - just got notice from water co. that they're gonna go thru the neighborhood replacing old meters with new ones with radio transmitters to nake it easiere & safer for the readers...I have little doubts that when they do, they will somehow manage the fuck up the old lines somewhere down the road...

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