Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant and System Operators

59% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): Occupations with a moderate risk of automation usually involve routine tasks but still require some human judgment and interaction.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

User poll

Sentiment

The following graph is included wherever there is a substantial amount of votes to render meaningful data. These visual representations display user poll results over time, providing a significant indication of sentiment trends.

Wages

Moderately paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant and System Operators' was $54,890, or $26 per hour

'Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant and System Operators' were paid 14.2% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

Comments

Water Operator (Low) 2 years ago

This industry has many issues when it comes to funding, stemming from a rapidly shrinking revenue stream due to failing economics in large urban centers and rapidly draining federal and state funds for maintenance of water infrastructure.

The risk involved with automating these specific jobs is too high, and the cost too great to cover all cases and mitigate all the risks, meaning these jobs should be safe for the future. Paradoxically, despite their absurd importance, funding seems to always get leaner every year.

Although many facets could be automated, integrating these automated systems into the majority of dilapidated infrastructure would be too cumbersome to be a real issue.

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Waddlebrow (Moderate) 3 years ago

Most dosages, valve changing and treatments are already automated and we’re just babysitting the programs to ensure they run correctly

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paul 3 years ago

This job is already fully automated, most of the job is monitoring the systems to see if they're working properly, taking samples here and there, and ensuring the systems are working properly. Humans have a biased view to have ourselves as a last-line-of-defence, because in a sense we're also dealing with the health of an entire population.
I can see complications resulting from system upgrades or increasing efficiency by reducing workers and having people take on more responsibilities with more complex systems, but it will likely never be 100% automated because of our bias..

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Christopher (Low) 3 years ago

Many functions in this industry could be automated -- and should be, in my opinion. But very few systems apply best available technology, and so many do not even fund basic infrastructure maintenance. I believe robots will replace or supplement operators very little within the next 2 decades.

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Doug Flores (Low) 5 years ago

This job takes into account all aspects of being human. You have to listen to the equipment, see changes in the processes, take into account the smell of the wastewater and be able to make changes to the equipment to maintain safe effluent. The operator has to take samples and perform the appropriate tests to ensure quality discharge of the plant.

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Annon 4 years ago

Thanks for the info. Yeah, it sounds like it will not be 100% automated, but technology will just make the job a little easier. Technology will be there to help out.

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Sarah (Low) 5 years ago

I think wastewater treatment could be done partially be done by robots. I wish we have apps to check if the water is safe.

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Zach 3 years ago

100%. I really would like more automated tests and more frequent testing done not just in the plant but in the collection system. I've been asking for portable SCADA tablets for well over 2-3 years now. Maybe one day..

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