LABOR RESOURCES FOR UTILITY MANAGERS

• WWEMA Window: The Aging Workforce And The Water Community — A CEO’s Perspective

  No matter if you are a utility, manufacturer, manufacturers rep, or contractor, finding and keeping good employees is one of our most critical future challenges. It has always been an issue, but it has become even more serious as all of us in the water industry age. According to a U.S. EPA Water Workforce Report, as well as other industrywide surveys, our industry faces significant challenges in recruiting, training, and retaining employees.

• Next-Generation Solutions To Stormwater And Personnel Challenges

  In an industry beleaguered by workforce retirements, costly consent decrees, and climate-induced heavy rainfall events, fresh perspectives and ingenuity are high-profile needs. Fortunately, the U.S. EPA’s  Campus RainWorks Challenge is designed to deliver exactly those benefits from the next generation of stormwater specialists. Here’s how current utilities, municipal planners, and consulting-engineer practices all stand to benefit.

• Maximizing The Value Of Asset And Work Management Systems

  Tracking specific assets such as pumps and pipelines may keep water or wastewater flowing, but helping a utility flourish under challenging physical, financial, and environmental pressures requires a more comprehensive overview. Here’s how asset management and work management solutions integrated within a GIS-centric system of action can do a better job of supporting both tactical and strategic aspects of utility operation.

• Sounding The Alarm: How To Enable Efficient Infrastructure Surveillance And Response

  With SCADA and an upgraded remote alarm notification system, North Port Utilities in Florida can keep ‘eyes’ on operations even when workers are off — out of sight but never out of touch.

• The Future Of Water Service Depends On Bridging The Looming Talent Gap

  In a public statement addressing the Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Workforce Initiative and the need to secure fresh talent for the water industry, the Water Environment Federation’s Tom Kunetz shared what seems to be the industry’s clarion call. He said that “building a dynamic and diverse water workforce for the 21st century is absolutely vital” for matters of both public health and environmental conservation — and nothing is more pressing.

• Smart Water Plants: How A Digitized Workforce Drives Higher OPEX Reductions

  Key processes within Water & Wastewater operations can now be digitized. This is good news, especially for an industry under pressure to both lower OPEX and manage an aging workforce. Trends such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), cloud computing and “edge” control are emerging as technology engines that present cost-effective options for modernizing operations. When it comes to OPEX reduction, however, technology is what enables plant workers to make the biggest savings impact.

• EPA Looks To Denver Water As Example For $2 Trillion American Jobs Plan

  Lead Reduction Program highlighted for jobs, unique approach to diverse communities.

• WWEMA Window: The New Face Of Manufacturing

  Like many of you, I have recently been listening to and participating in many webinars and reading articles about the current challenges facing the manufacturing community — supply chain disruptions, material price escalations, workforce safety issues, market uncertainties and volatility, etc. One of the more difficult challenges focuses on worker shortages and the inability to find the right people with the right skills.

• Getting Serious About Gaming For Water Stakeholders

  Gaming has always been an integral part of human culture. One of the oldest forms of social interaction and communication, games have enabled civilisations to bond and thrive as communities.

• Water Professionals Deserve Your Appreciation

  History records that comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s most famous line was “I don’t get no respect. No respect at all.”