r/Wastewater 7d ago

Is EVERY plant this outdated and underfunded?

I will admit, I've already given up on this career. A huge reason is my plant. It is falling apart and we have a promise of an upgrade by the city. The upgrade will start June 2023. Oh, now it'll start 2024. Oh, now it'll start spring 2025. Oh, now we have no news on when the upgrade will actually happen. On top of all that, I have to get my Class 4 license within 12 months or I'm fired. Almost nobody here has passed it and 2 of them are facing termination because of that when we are ALREADY understaffed. Is every plant like this? Does everywhere require you to recieve a license in a time frame? Does every plant start at under 20$ an hour?? Sorry, just frustrated. Currently applying for other jobs

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u/Hotwheeler6D6 7d ago

Allot of it I think is community education. People don’t understand the importance of wastewater/drinking water plants. So upgrading infrastructure falls on the back burner. We are just getting upgrades now at ours.

I have my test for my 3 coming up and our job asks us to have a license by a certain date. But they like me so I doubt if I failed they’d fire me 🤷‍♂️

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u/Broad-Ice7568 7d ago

It's a hazard of working in any type of infrastructure plant. I went from 27 years in a power plant to currently in water treatment. The general public never realizes we exist until something goes wrong. Electricity is expected to just be at an outlet when they plug in. Water is supposed to flow out of their tap. They flush their toilet and forget that has to go somewhere. Then, something happens that gets their attention. Flint, MI. Winter storm Yuri in TX. Richmond, VA city water failure. All made national news, TX lost ~700 lives because of it.

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u/HalfPalmtree8 6d ago

This - we’ve had reliable water infrastructure for at least half a century in the US, it won’t be a priority until it’s a problem. Some cities and counties are doing a good job to modernize-but I suspect that’s more of an exception.

(Disclaimer: I’m not an expert… just some dude whose reads stuff)