Right of Way Permits

The Office of the City Engineer administers and enforces city ordinances pertaining to the construction, operation, and maintenance of pipelines in public streets within the City. The ordinance facilitates emergency response and minimizes the cost of future public works and utilities by providing a central record of all pipelines across, along, and under streets. 

• Pipeline permit procedures
• New pipeline application
• Existing pipeline application
• Pipeline questionnaire

The City of Houston designates the Office of the City Engineer to administer and enforce city ordinances about the construction, alteration, maintenance, and destruction of monitoring wells and soil borings within the city's right of way.

The goals of the Office of the City Engineer's Monitoring Well Program are:

• To permit the drilling, installation, and destruction of borings and wells within the city right of way.
• To educate the public regarding potential monitoring well hazards within the city right of way.
• To minimize any risks to public health with compliance in bringing deficient monitoring wells within the city right of way to proper standards.

These are accomplished by compliance with the City of Houston Code of Ordinances, Chapter 40, Article XII, Sections 40-281 through 40-310.

What is a monitoring well?

Any mechanical device or monitoring well and its associated apparatus placed within a public street and designed and constructed to measure or monitor the quality or movement of foreign substances, elements, chemicals, fluids, or pollutants below the surface of the ground or any mechanical device, method, or apparatus, placed in a public street and designed and constructed to obtain a sample soil core boring from a depth of greater than one foot below the surface of the ground, to remove soil for environmental quality testing.

Generally, monitoring wells and borings are constructed to observe conditions at defined or required locations. Monitoring well locations are usually selected based on known or expected hydrologic, geologic, and water quality conditions and the location of pollutant or contaminant sources. Frequently, monitoring wells need to be located close to or within areas of pollution or contamination. Proper design and construction of monitoring wells are essential for acquiring reliable subsurface data and representative samples.

• Monitoring well permit application
• Monitoring well bond form
• Monitoring well frequently asked questions