The Water Industry's Impending Silver Tsunami (with TN Assoc. Utility Districts, Pellissippi State, Cumberland River Compact, and TN STEM Innovation Network)

Clean and abundant water is provided to communities across the United States by skilled and trained environmental professionals. Yet the water workforce is facing an impending retirement crisis, with an expected 30 to 50 percent of the workforce retiring in the next decade. The crisis has reached emergency levels in many rural communities. At the same time, our water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure are in desperate need of reinvestment to be resilient for the future, and stricter guidelines are coming out to protect water.  Ensuring clean water is available to communities necessitates a highly-skilled, trained, and certified workforce.

The 2018 state water report, Tennessee H20, outlines the crisis we could face. It states that while protecting the availability of water in our state is important, “equal attention must be given to the critical need associated with a diminishing workforce charged with the maintenance, security, and growth of our infrastructure investment. The state is quickly reaching the disturbing point of not having a sufficient number of operators to protect, manage, and maintain these systems in the future.

In today's River Talk, we dive into the water workforce crisis and its impacts on our state, plus we explore how to connect young people to these rewarding STEM careers. Our guests on the podcast include Kevin Byrd from the Tennessee Association of Utility Districts, Cristina Carbajo with the Water Quality Technology Program at Pellissippi State Community College, Misty Brown with the Tennessee STEM Innovation Network, and, of course, the Cumberland River Compact. These diverse partners come together in a unique collaborative approach to addressing the water workforce crisis and to providing clean water for Tennesseeans.

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