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Final Insights

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Industry-Wide Insights

Insight 1

An inclusive and collaborative approach would bring a shared understanding to the water industry

Insight 2

Researchers have flexibility & freedom to innovate that allows them to support the work of practitioners.

Insight 3

Utilities are expected to provide a wide range of services to diverse communities

Insight 4

As public trust has lowered, watershed councils and consultants have been looked to for expertise

Insight 5

A clear path is needed for kids who don’t plan on attending university to enter the water utility workforce

Insight 6

Regulators have felt increased pressure to enforce drinking water laws since water quality issues in Flint

Insight 7

There needs to be more awareness around aging infrastructure to promote funding and partnerships

Insight 8

Small utilities need to balance many roles, and don’t have time to access meetings and conferences

Insight 9

Water is a silent sector and people only notice when something goes wrong

Insight 10

Utilities are shifting communications strategy with the media to gain public trust

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Insight 1

An inclusive and collaborative approach would bring a shared understanding to the water industry, but silos and time constraints currently limit such efforts.

A wide variety of opportunities could strengthen researcher/utility relationships:

Create clear paths for initiating relationships for both sides
Increase trust between both partners
Ensure clear and equitable benefits for all parties involved in collaboration
Invest time, money, & persistence towards collaboration
Offer collaborative settings to learn how to work with real data
Reshape academic culture surrounding collaborative research

Collaborative projects may help bring people up to speed on the latest research when they don’t have time to read in their busy day-to-day work. It is important to be able to put a face to a name to compensate for power dynamics.

Valuing the diverse expertise of a range of stakeholder groups allows for a more collaborative and comprehensive approach to drinking water. For example, consumer voices bring in expertise of their communities.

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Insight 2

Researchers have academic flexibility and freedom to innovate that allows them to support the work of drinking water practitioners.

Funding incentives exist for researchers to do applied work which could be leveraged by utilities and other stakeholders; researchers can get funded to do stakeholder-focused projects

Researchers can use their flexibility to include stakeholders early in their research process, which better sets up their work for implementation. However, this same flexibility allows researchers to span a wide variety of clientele and projects, so they do not always see each project through to implementation. Understanding one’s capacity to work on projects through to implementation is a key for success.

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Insight 3

Utilities are expected to provide a wide range of services to diverse communities, and they require the necessary resources and skill sets to meet those expectations.

Increased regulations have increased the pressures on utility professionals and their limited resources.

The complexity of water systems and daily workload of providing drinking water is not always made clear to the public.

Consumers and utilities sometimes have differing views on utility responsibilities, which can result in tensions.

When looking for external assistance, utilities tend to turn to engineering consultants or environmental consultants that help with a variety of tasks. Some of these tasks include operations management, technology implementation, and regulation advocacy.

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Insight 4

As trust in public services, including water utilities and regulators, has dwindled, watershed councils and consultants have been looked to for expertise and information.

Consultants can translate experience from decades of work across different organizational models. Most utilities have a short list of go-to consultants that they call for assistance when needed.

Watershed councils are seen as a trusted source of information because of their status as a community organization.

The public tends to view these two groups as trusted experts in water as they lack any specific affiliation. In contrast, water utilities have wider perceptions of expertise.

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Insight 5

There needs to be a clear path for students pursuing technical jobs (rather than a 4-year university) that markets the training opportunities and stable career path for utility professionals.

Utilities can provide stable jobs for young adults as they graduate high school, and there are a wide variety of options for career growth as utility employees are getting more responsibility. Many utility professionals did not actively seek out their position but instead happened to “stumble upon” the industry.

Target recruitment opportunities for utilities include marketing to graduating high school seniors and creating a career path within community colleges.

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Insight 6

Regulators have felt increased pressure to enforce drinking water laws since water quality issues in Flint but try to improve communication through feedback and partnerships.

Stakeholders question the motivations behind regulations. Regulators try to proactively bring voices to the table, and until recently, utility relationships with regulators were generally positive. However, since Flint, relationships have been strained, resulting in tensions around new regulation.

Utility relationships with EGLE vary. Some feel that their relationships are positive, while others feel that there is tension.

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Insight 7

There needs to be more awareness around aging public infrastructure in order to drive the needed social and financial investments toward maintaining these structures.

Aging infrastructure is one of utilities’ largest concerns, and they do not always have the financial resources to address these concerns due to low water rates. Rate payers naturally push back on increased rates.

The water sector may explore leveraging private equity, small businesses, or public sector partnerships. Economic or strategic expertise can help utilities to leverage existing data sets for potential infrastructure and debt funding.

A successful example of these types of partnerships is coordinating projects with below ground infrastructure, which allows communities to coordinate water main funding with road funding because roads get more public attention.

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Insight 8

Small utility professionals and community organizations must balance many roles and cannot always access state meetings/conferences for their voices to be heard.

Smaller plants and community orgs have few people to fill needed roles which makes external involvement difficult. Small utilities struggle with attending AWWA meetings/conferences and dealing with rule changes because they are often understaffed.

Large organizations, such as the AWWA, may be incidentally skewed towards urban areas because larger utilities are able to have a larger presence in such meetings.

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Insight 9

Because water is a silent sector, most people only take notice of the industry when something goes wrong. Nonetheless, the workforce is passionate about its daily work.

Water is a “silent sector” – the public often doesn’t take notice unless something goes wrong – so it unfortunately takes failure to keep people aware and drive action.

Though there has not been much space for celebration within the water industry, water employees usually have a lot of care and passion about the work that they are doing for their communities.

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Insight 10

Lack of understanding and awareness causes the public to distrust their own utilities, so water utilities have begun to shift their communication strategies to better convey their stories.

A lack of public awareness around drinking water has led to public distrust in water utilities. The media tends to perpetuate this distrust as there is usually only coverage when something goes wrong.

To regain public trust, utilities are trying to shift their communication strategy in order to gain control of the narrative. This communicative involvement allows them to more directly tell their stories to the communities that they serve.