Over a decade after Flint, the effort to remove lead pipes has moved from voluntary action to a national deadline. Roya Alkafaji of the Environmental Defense Fund traces a series of milestones that have transformed lead service line replacement across the U.S.: ➡️ 2016: The Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative…
💧 H2O INTRO 👤 Meet Sean Owens, Treatment Plant Supervisor for Central Arkansas Water Water utilities are preparing for a wave of retirements, but Sean Owens sees another workforce problem developing in the middle: employees aren't always getting the skills and experience they need to become the next generation of…
About 1 in 12 U.S. water systems still fails to meet basic health standards for drinking water. Alan Roberson, former executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators and a member of the Water & Health Advisory Council, says persistent violations expose a fundamental gap in the Safe…
A dozen years after the Flint water crisis galvanized national action on lead pipes, the United States has moved from scattered voluntary replacement efforts to a federal mandate to remove nearly all lead service lines by 2037. Roya Alkafaji of the Environmental Defense Fund and Mason Hines of RESOLVE are…
Sunrise along Falcon Reservoir was a special morning on my recent trip along the Rio Grande. Temperatures were still in the 70s—with 105 coming later that day—and the early light was spreading across the water and mesquite trees. Birds were everywhere, drawn to this huge patch of water in an…
Moving waste is costing billions. Removing the water could change the economics. About $52 billion is spent each year transporting high-strength liquid wastes from food processing, livestock operations, and wastewater treatment. According to Kim Nace of Bright Water Tools, much of that cost comes from hauling water rather than the…
Longmont is turning turf replacement from a guessing game into a data-driven water strategy. Instead of removing random patches of grass, the Colorado city brought departments together to define nonfunctional turf, map where it exists on city property, and decide where replacement would make the biggest difference. The finding was…
💧 H2O INTRO 👤 Meet Neha Ghaisas, Engineer, Green Stormwater and Stream Design Unit, Philadelphia Water Department Philadelphia has more than 160 miles of streams and creeks flowing through the city, feeding the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Those waterways are becoming a central part of how the city approaches infrastructure…
Water utilities don't just need suppliers anymore. They need problem solvers. Jeff Bridge of Oldcastle Infrastructure says public water systems are being asked to tackle bigger infrastructure challenges without adding staff or growing their budgets. "They're not making money. They're not getting bigger. They're not getting to add a ton…
Predict. Monitor. Plan. Act. Brett Braganz of Oldcastle Infrastructure says those four steps provide a roadmap for using digital tools to manage aging water infrastructure more effectively. Instead of making replacement decisions with limited information, utilities can first predict where failures are most likely and where the consequences would be…
Utilities are data rich but insight poor. Water systems have spent decades collecting information through SCADA controls, geographic information systems, work management platforms, and operating records. But much of that data remains trapped in separate systems that do not easily communicate. Travis Wagner of Trinnex says the immediate challenge is…
The cheapest infrastructure can become the most expensive over time. As water utilities prepare to invest billions in replacing aging infrastructure, Charis Klimas of Oldcastle Infrastructure says many are rethinking how they define value. Rather than focusing primarily on the lowest upfront price, utilities are increasingly weighing resilience and an…
The next breakthrough in water treatment may not come from a new filter. It may come from reengineering the technology inside it. Salt-based softeners, activated carbon filters and membrane systems have served homes and businesses for decades. But they also come with tradeoffs, including wastewater generation, energy use, mineral removal,…
Digital water’s near-term impact may be less about replacing people than strengthening the decisions they already make. Joshua Cantone of SUEZ says digital tools should complement operator experience, engineering judgment, and the systems utilities already use. The goal is assistance—not handing critical decisions over to software. That distinction matters as…
Across Colorado and the West, communities need a mix of grants, utility dollars, rates, rebates, partnerships, and local policy to make conservation work at scale. Denver Water may offer another model. The utility is replacing tens of thousands of lead service lines, including many on private property, at no direct…
Water utilities may never escape the need to triage infrastructure, but better data, design, and monitoring can reduce the constant churn of reactive responses. In this episode, Jeff Bridge, Charis Klimas, and Brett Braganz of Oldcastle Infrastructure examine how utilities can move upstream of failure by choosing materials for the…
The next era of drinking-water protection may depend on deciding which risks deserve attention first. Chad Seidel of Corona Environmental Consulting and the Water & Health Advisory Council says the Safe Drinking Water Act was built around identifying contaminants, setting standards, and enforcing them—a framework that produced major public-health gains…
💧 H2O INTRO 👤 Meet Jackie McCloud, former Environmental Sustainability Division Manager for the City of Watsonville, California For some families, the biggest barrier to safe drinking water isn't contamination. It's affordability. Jackie McCloud worked to better understand and address water affordability in Watsonville, where low-income households continue to struggle…
American manufacturing can be a laboratory for water innovation when the people hearing field problems, designing improvements, building components, and testing equipment work under one roof. A visit to Blue-White Industries in Huntington Beach, California, offers a close look at that model. The company manufactures chemical metering pumps, flow meters,…
AI adoption in water may be accelerating first at the kitchen table—not inside the treatment plant. Joshua Cantone of SUEZ says everyday use of tools such as ChatGPT or Claude is changing how utility workers view digital technology. Familiarity outside the workplace can make operators more willing to consider data-driven…
Control of the U.S.-Mexico border limits access to the Rio Grande River and deters people from recreation along the water. A trail in Roma, Texas leads past old picnic tables in an overgrown area, a dirt road built by Border Control, and a fence prohibiting river access. On the Mexico…
Water utilities are facing a knowledge drain that no hiring campaign can fully replace. As veteran operators retire, decades of experience with pumps, filters, treatment processes, and emergency response can leave with them. Travis Wagner of Trinnex says artificial intelligence could help preserve part of that institutional knowledge—but not by…
Digital systems, increasingly strengthened by artificial intelligence, are helping water utilities move from reacting to failures toward anticipating where infrastructure problems are most likely to occur. Joshua Cantone of SUEZ explains how that shift is changing decisions about pipes, pumps, wells, treatment plants, and long-term capital investment. Many utilities already…
Water risk can build miles upstream before it reaches an intake. A plant may depend on canals, rivers or reservoirs that pass through agricultural, industrial and urban areas. When conditions change across that watershed, the effects can cascade into treatment operations—driving up costs and creating new reliability and compliance risks.…