NewsScienceTechnology

waterloop

Travis Loop

waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for sustainability and equity in water. Hosted by journalist Travis Loop, the podcast features stories from across the U.S. about water infrastructure, conservation, innovation, technology, policy, PFAS, climate resilience, and more.

Play

Open in

34 episodes
Avg 27 min
English

Episodes 34

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

Saturday · length unknown
Protecting Philadelphia's Source Water | Day In The Life
Protecting Philadelphia’s drinking water means looking far beyond the city limits. With 98% of the Schuylkill River watershed outside Philadelphia, keeping pollution away from drinking-water intakes depends on understanding what happens upstream—and working with the communities there. Day In The Life is a series showing how utility workers keep America’s water systems running. This episode follows Kelly Anderson, director of the office of watersheds at the Philadelphia Water Department, whose responsibility is also personal: her family drinks the water she helps protect. Anderson grew up exploring creeks and watching the Delaware River from her New Jersey hometown. A hands-on science education at Drexel University and utility internships starting in 2002 turned that curiosity into a career, with early assignments ranging from walking Philadelphia’s creeks to investigating conditions near the watershed’s headwaters. At the Manayunk Canal and Flat Rock Dam, she examines how restored flow could improve water quality near a drinking-water intake. A visit to Wissahickon Creek recalls a cyanide spill that helped shape her understanding of emergency response and the consequences of pollution upstream. Source-water protection connects scientific investigation, long-term planning, and relationships with people across a watershed. For utilities, that work means anticipating threats before water reaches a treatment plant, while staying ready for the spill or storm that changes the day’s priorities. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. The Day In The Life series is made possible by sponsors: Platinum sponsor Pentair Gold sponsors Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, National Association of Clean Water Agencies, and Water Environment Federation. Silver sponsors American Water Works Association, Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, Human Capital Solutions, and Vaughan Company.
November 4 · length unknown
Screening Out Problems Between Source and Treatment
Getting water from underground aquifers or waterways into a treatment plant means responding to changing conditions, protecting equipment, and caring for the environment at the source. The systems that collect and filter that water have to adapt to achieve those goals. In this episode, John Wilson, CEO of Johnson Screens, brings a perspective from infrastructure most people never see. He traces the decisions that begin underground or on the surface and continue through water collection, treatment, and the effort to keep equipment working for decades. Drilling deeper introduces engineering challenges beyond simply reaching water, including greater loads and pressure on well components. Wilson also describes how lower river levels can leave existing intakes poorly positioned, while protecting fish, mussels, and other aquatic life adds another layer to their design. Those pressures make getting more from existing infrastructure especially relevant. From rehabilitating wells affected by scale buildup to using recycled glass as filtration media, Wilson discusses approaches intended to extend service life, reduce fouling, and put discarded materials to work. Choosing among those options starts with understanding the particular site and questioning whether yesterday’s approach still fits. The conversation closes with another practical challenge: bringing students into facilities and giving them hands-on exposure before the industry’s experienced workforce moves on. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
November 2 · length unknown
Less Downtime By Design: Inside The Innovation Of A Chemical Pump
Routine pump maintenance can interrupt chemical feed and consume time that water treatment operators already have too little of. Designing around that reality means looking beyond pumping performance to how equipment is cleaned, repaired, and adapted when conditions change. In this episode from WEFTEC 2026, Rob Gledhill, president and CEO of Blue-White Industries, explains how watching operators work helped turn a pump update into a broader redesign. What began as improvements to a peristaltic metering pump became a platform designed to accommodate different pumping technologies. The idea becomes tangible when Gledhill swaps a peristaltic pump head for a diaphragm head in about ten seconds. He explains how the software recognizes the change, and why rising system pressure might prompt an operator to switch technologies rather than replace the entire pump. That flexibility also changes the maintenance routine: a prepared spare head can go into service while the worn one moves to a workbench. Smaller engineering decisions matter, too, including check valves designed to fit only in the correct orientation, addressing an assembly mistake Gledhill has seen in plants. Throughout the conversation, the focus returns to the operator’s experience and the tradeoffs between accuracy, pressure, tube life, and ease of maintenance. The practical goal is to give operators more control over when and where they do the work, while reducing the time equipment spends out of service. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
October 27 · 16 min
Getting More From The Pipes We Already Have
Pipes for water systems can lose capacity or go uninspected for decades, leaving utilities with an incomplete picture of what their infrastructure can deliver. This episode looks at two technologies that SUEZ is bringing to North America by leveraging its global deployment experience. The first is ice pigging, a process that cleans pressurized pipes. The second is a floating device called SewerBall that gathers images and water-quality data. Kevin Shipp, SUEZ’s general manager for ice pigging in North America, explains how a slurry of ice crystals removes accumulated debris and biofilm. He describes a North Carolina project where lift station flow increased from 120 to 490 gallons per minute, restoring capacity needed for a new subdivision. Finding out what is happening inside a sewer presents a different challenge, especially where inspection trucks cannot reach. Charles Kruse, SUEZ’s North American SewerBall leader, shares how a floating device combines cameras with water-quality sensors to inspect previously inaccessible pipes. There’s some fascinating chemistry in that detective work, too. Changes in pH, conductivity, and other measurements can offer clues about groundwater entering a sewer or an industrial discharge, helping utilities identify where closer attention is needed. Abigail Antolovich, SUEZ’s vice president of sales and business development for Tech Solutions, connects these approaches to decisions about maintenance, repairs, and capital spending. She describes how operating experience, careful planning, and field support help utilities build confidence in adopting these technologies. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
October 26 · length unknown
Turning NASA Data Into Action
What if a farmer, conservation manager, or utility operator could question decades of NASA water data in plain language—and get information tailored to a real decision? Rebecca Peters, Earth Action Lead for NASA, explains how the agency is working to move Earth science from vast public datasets into tools people can actually use. Earth is NASA’s most studied planet, and advances in satellite resolution, computing power, and modeling are revealing how rainfall, snowpack, groundwater, and soil moisture interact as one system. The growing detail can reach the scale of individual reservoirs and agricultural regions, creating new possibilities for managing water and food production. The challenge is translation. Peters describes how NASA’s Earth Action program starts with the decisions people face, then works backward to provide information at the right geographic scale and time frame without sacrificing scientific rigor. One emerging example is Hydrology Copilot, a NASA-Microsoft project designed to make decades of runoff and snowpack data searchable through a conversational interface. Peters also explains how forecasts can give communities valuable time before droughts and floods, and how satellite observations are being combined with field monitoring in the Chesapeake Bay to track harmful algal blooms, sediment, and turbidity. The most interesting shift may be from asking what happened to understanding what is happening now—and what could happen next. The work ahead is getting that knowledge through the final few inches between a screen and the person making the decision. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. This episode is from a conversation at the Reservoir Center in Washington, D.C.
October 22 · 14 min
The Chemistry Eating Our Sewers
What’s actually eating away at the concrete inside our sewer systems? The answer takes us into a world of bacteria, sulfuric acid, and chemical reactions happening beneath our streets. In this episode, Joseph Talley of Imerys provides a deep dive into the chemistry of wastewater corrosion. He breaks down how the process starts, what it does to concrete, and why understanding those reactions matters when choosing how to repair the damage. There’s some fascinating materials science in the response, too. Talley explains how calcium aluminate linings interact with that corrosive environment, using chemistry to neutralize acid and slow the bacteria producing it. That science connects to a very practical question for utilities: can we get more life out of what’s already underground? From avoiding excavation in New Orleans’ French Quarter to evaluating a repaired treatment structure for four years in Washington, D.C., the conversation connects chemical reactions to construction decisions and the evidence needed to try something different. Talley also describes work on thinner linings for new concrete, raising the possibility of putting that chemistry to work before the damage begins. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. Learn more about this episode\'s sponsor Imerys.
October 17 · 18 min
AI Moves From Answers To Action
After years of collecting and organizing data, the water sector appears to be reaching a turning point: AI is helping utilities put that information to work proactively. In this episode, Seth Nickinson, Director of Product at SewerAI, brings the perspective of a software developer responding to what utilities need from AI—and what still makes them cautious. He sees adoption accelerating as people bring experience with tools like ChatGPT into the workplace, along with firsthand knowledge of their limitations. That puts trust at the center of the conversation: an AI tool needs to understand the questions utility staff are asking and work reliably with their system’s records. The practical opportunities often involve time-consuming work, such as analyzing inspection histories or preparing the same findings for different audiences. SewerAI’s new Command Center offers one example, letting users ask questions about their inspection records and digital maps in everyday language. AI is also shortening the path from a customer’s request to a new software capability, changing how quickly developers can respond to local needs. An equally important challenge is preserving the knowledge of retiring employees who understand why their particular sewer system behaves the way it does. Protecting those records raises questions about where data goes and whether outside AI providers can use it for training. Looking ahead, Nickinson expects more analysis to happen directly inside inspection robots and sensors rather than on distant servers. His vision is an assistant that helps utilities adapt a maintenance schedule when a storm arrives or equipment fails, connecting accumulated knowledge to the decisions crews face that day. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
October 11 · 30 min
Finding Dollars For Drops | Resilience In The Rockies
Saving water is one challenge; finding the money to build conservation projects is another. The fourth episode of Resilience In The Rockies examines how Colorado communities are assembling federal, state, local, and private funding to turn water-efficiency ideas into infrastructure, with WaterNow helping local partners identify opportunities, navigate complex grant programs, and strengthen applications. Along the Rio Grande near Del Norte, partners combined a $1.2 million Bureau of Reclamation WaterSMART grant with state funding, private philanthropy, and contributions from water users to modernize the Farmers Union diversion, which serves 12 other ditches. The rebuilt diversion improves agricultural water delivery while adding fish passage, automated head gates, streambank stabilization, and aquatic habitat—giving multiple interests a reason to invest in the same project. In Alamosa, a failing irrigation system at Cattails Golf Course had pushed a planned city project to about $1.3 million, until a $500,000 WaterSMART grant helped close the funding gap. The upgrade replaced more than 10,000 feet of leaking pipe and added precise irrigation controls that allow staff to reduce watering in roughs and other lower-priority areas during drought; the city says the system has been saving about a dozen acre-feet of water annually in recent dry years. Greeley faced a much larger infrastructure problem as aging meter batteries began failing across a system with roughly 29,000 meters, leaving the utility with estimated readings and little ability to spot leaks quickly. About $3.5 million in federal WaterSMART grants helped accelerate Greeley’s move to advanced metering infrastructure, giving the utility 15-minute usage data, improving meter accuracy, reducing manual reading routes, and giving customers much faster information about leaks and their own water use. Across the three projects, the lesson is straightforward: conservation is infrastructure, and expanding it at meaningful scale requires capital, partnerships, staff capacity, and often outside expertise to help communities compete for the funding that makes projects possible. Resilience In The Rockies is a waterloop series produced in collaboration with WaterNow and made possible in part by a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, with support from PCL Construction, Norris Design, Merrick, and the City of Greeley.
October 5 · 35 min
Connecting People To Conservation | Resilience In The Rockies
Colorado communities are treating public engagement as water infrastructure, using trusted messengers, targeted outreach, and practical programs to turn conservation strategies into action. The third episode of Resilience in the Rockies examines how Summit County, Boulder, and Aurora are reaching people who can determine whether water-saving programs actually work, plus how technical assistance from WaterNow enables the programs. In Summit County, High Country Conservation Center helps connect more than 15 water providers, several mountain towns, residents, businesses, and landscapers through rebates, irrigation assessments, training, and demonstration gardens. That regional role matters because local utilities often lack the staff capacity to design and run conservation programs while also operating treatment plants, repairing leaks, and serving customers. Boulder is taking a different approach as it rethinks how to reach a community where more than half of residents are renters and the University of Colorado brings roughly 40,000 students with widely different connections to local water issues. After reducing per-capita water use by about 30 percent since 2002, the city is developing a new conservation communications strategy that focuses on people often missed by traditional government outreach. That work includes plain-language communication, translation, accessibility for people using assistive devices, and more deliberate outreach to residents who may not already have strong connections to city government. In Aurora, where more than 180 languages are spoken, the challenge is building understanding of water reuse in a city that imports water from several major river basins and relies on Prairie Waters to stretch existing supplies. Aurora Water, Metro Water Recovery, and the Aurora Health Alliance are working with public health professionals as trusted messengers, giving them direct exposure to drinking water treatment, wastewater processes, and reuse so they can answer questions from patients and community members with greater confidence. Across all three communities, the lesson is that conservation programs become more effective when people understand the choices in front of them, trust the information they receive, and have a clear path to act on it. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. Resilience in the Rockies is produced in collaboration with WaterNow and made possible in part by a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, with support from PCL Construction, Norris Design, Merrick, and the City of Greeley.
September 20 · 19 min
The Dramatic Drop In American Home Water Use
Indoor residential water use in American homes has fallen 44 percent over three decades, as more efficient fixtures and appliances allow people to perform the same daily tasks with far less water. Peter Mayer, principal engineer at WaterDM and lead author of all three Residential End Uses of Water studies, explains the findings from the Water Research Foundation’s 2026 update. The study draws on billing records from 52 utilities across the United States and Canada, along with high-resolution data from more than 69,000 single-family homes and 1,000 multifamily homes. Average indoor use in single-family homes dropped from 69.3 gallons per person per day in 1999 to 38.5 gallons in 2026. Clothes washers produced the largest savings, cutting per-person water use from laundry by nearly 68 percent as federal energy standards pushed manufacturers toward more efficient machines. Toilet use also declined sharply, with the average flush volume falling from roughly 3.5 gallons in 1999 to 1.84 gallons today. These gains came primarily from national plumbing codes, energy standards, and better technology—not dramatic changes in household behavior. The study examined multifamily housing for the first time and found that indoor use in small, individually metered buildings averaged 39.8 gallons per person per day, remarkably close to single-family demand. With indoor efficiency beginning to approach practical limits, the next major opportunity lies outdoors, where changing landscapes and irrigation systems will be more expensive and take decades—but could help growing communities stretch existing water supplies much further. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
September 13 · 26 min
Governing For Gallons In Colorado | Resilience In The Rockies
Policy is becoming a water-supply tool in Colorado, as local governments use development codes, financing rules, and workforce requirements to reduce demand. The second episode of Resilience in the Rockies examines how Broomfield, Denver Water, and Aspen are using governance to move conservation projects forward. In Broomfield, where landscape irrigation accounted for an estimated 60 to 70 percent of annual water demand, a 2023 ordinance limits turf to 30 percent of new landscapes and caps outdoor use at 12 gallons per square foot annually. The city developed the code after a WaterNow workshop and consultation with residents, elected officials, landscape architects, and homeowners associations. Denver Water worked with WaterNow to finance more than half a billion dollars in replacements of customer-owned lead pipes—a type of private property investment that utilities traditionally could not place on their books or support with tax-exempt debt. The resulting accounting and IRS approvals established a model Denver Water is now testing for turf removal and considering for watershed protection. Aspen requires qualifying landscapes to meet water budgets, use efficient irrigation, and pass third-party audits because the headwaters community depends on snowpack and has only a few days of municipal storage. To make the code enforceable in practice, WaterNow has helped Aspen train more than 100 landscape and irrigation technicians since 2018. In each case, decisions about land use, public finance, and implementation are converting conservation goals into projects with measurable water-supply benefits. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. Resilience in the Rockies is produced in collaboration with WaterNow and made possible in part by a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, with support from PCL Construction, Norris Design, Merrick, and the City of Greeley.
September 2 · 25 min
Take A Tour Of Manufacturing Innovation In America
Bringing research, prototyping, production, and shipping under one roof can turn American manufacturing into a faster engine for water innovation. Rob Gledhill, CEO of Blue-White Industries, offers an inside look at how the Huntington Beach company develops and manufactures equipment used in water and wastewater treatment. Blue-White produces chemical metering pumps, flow meters, instrumentation, and complete chemical-feed systems for drinking water, industrial processes, and wastewater facilities. Its Studio 53 research department brings engineers together with production workers, customer-service representatives, returns specialists, and customers to sketch ideas and rapidly test prototypes. When rising demand strained production, employees built a second assembly line in three days and doubled manufacturing capacity within two weeks. The same emphasis on simplicity reduced one developing product from about 30 parts to 11 while cutting its production timeline from 16 weeks to one week or less. Production 3D printers, CNC machines, injection-molding equipment, welders, and laser cutters allow the company to make many components in-house instead of waiting for parts delayed in international supply chains. Engineers also follow products into the field to see how operators use, misuse, or modify them, turning those observations into the next round of design changes. The tour shows that “Made in America” can be more than a label of origin. It can also be a manufacturing strategy built around speed, supply-chain resilience, institutional knowledge, and continuous improvement. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
August 25 · 23 min
Milwaukee's Path From Industrial Roots To Innovation Hub
Milwaukee’s water technology economy traces back roughly 150 years to breweries, tanneries, and meatpacking plants that created sustained demand for pumps, valves, meters, and pipes. In this episode, Karen Frost, executive director of The Water Council, explains how that industrial history continues to shape the city’s leading role in developing and scaling water technology. Water-intensive industries created demand for specialized equipment, and over time southeastern Wisconsin developed a dense network of water technology manufacturers. Two of its most prominent companies, A.O. Smith and Badger Meter, became central to organizing that network into The Water Council in 2009. Today, the nonprofit connects established manufacturers with startups, utilities, researchers, and international companies seeking routes into the U.S. market. The broader ecosystem includes the Freshwater Collaborative, which links water programs and internship opportunities across all 13 University of Wisconsin campuses. The BREW 2.0 post-accelerator brings about 10 companies into the network each year, helping businesses with working technologies and early revenue strengthen their sales strategies and industry relationships. Many of those groups also converge at the ReFRESH Summit, which has convened manufacturers, utilities, entrepreneurs, researchers, and students around emerging water issues since 2007. Frost’s goal is to keep extending Milwaukee’s industrial foundation by helping water technologies developed locally and around the world find the partners needed to reach the market. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
August 17 · 41 min
Rethinking Colorado Lawns | Resilience In The Rockies
Colorado communities adapting to the long-term strain on water supplies in the arid West are turning one of their largest demands—the irrigated landscape—into a source of new supply, with this year’s historically low snowpack adding urgency to the work. The first episode of Resilience in the Rockies travels from the Front Range to the Western Slope to examine how local leaders, utility managers, landscape professionals, and residents are replacing thirsty turf with landscapes designed for Colorado’s climate. In Westminster, where about half of the city’s drinking water is used outdoors, a prominent transformation at City Hall is expected to save at least 1.5 million gallons annually while adding native grasses, pollinator habitat, walking connections, and climate-appropriate plants grown at the city’s own greenhouse. At the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, nearly 3.5 acres of lightly used lawn have been redesigned with gathering areas, shade, native vegetation, and more precise irrigation—a project expected to conserve nearly 2 million gallons each year. Longmont is using GIS mapping to locate nonfunctional turf and rank potential projects according to water savings, heat vulnerability, air quality, irrigation source, community value, and opportunities to coordinate with other construction. That data-driven approach helped shape Kensington Park, where residents selected plants and amenities and helped install a water-wise garden around a neighborhood memorial previously damaged by irrigation. In Eagle County, the Beyond Lawn program pairs rebates with on-site evaluations, irrigation guidance, customized conservation plans, and contractor or do-it-yourself resources, helping replace 60,000 to 70,000 square feet of turf and save about four acre-feet of water annually. Together, the projects show that outdoor conservation succeeds when communities move beyond simply removing grass and create landscapes that are useful, attractive, locally appropriate, and supported over the long term. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability. Resilience in the Rockies is produced in collaboration with WaterNow and made possible in part by a grant from the Colorado Water Conservation Board, with support from PCL Construction, Norris Design, Merrick, and the City of Greeley. Attend the Resilience in the Rockies event on October 20 in Denver.
August 10 · 30 min
The Fight Against Lead: From Flint to 2037
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 members of the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative, a coalition of 28 national organizations formed in 2016 to accelerate replacement and share lessons from communities doing the work. The landscape has changed dramatically since then: federal rules required utilities to inventory their service lines, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law dedicated $15 billion specifically to lead service line replacement, and the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements established the 2037 replacement deadline for most communities. The number of publicly tracked replacement programs has also grown from 33 in 2017 to at least 270 today, while at least 20 communities have completed their programs. The Collaborative recently recognized 16 programs and individuals for work ranging from community engagement and funding innovation to technical efficiency, including efforts in Milwaukee, Denver, Newark, Memphis, Greeley, St. Paul, Washington, D.C., and other communities. Those examples matter because replacing the estimated four million lead service lines still in the ground will require different approaches in communities with vastly different resources, housing patterns, political environments, and infrastructure. Alkafaji says reaching the 2037 deadline will depend heavily on three things: sustained community engagement, full replacements at no direct cost to property owners, and a local workforce large and skilled enough to do the work. Hines points to another challenge looming as programs advance—the difficult final stretch of finding and replacing lines connected to absentee landlords, properties with uncertain records, and other hard-to-reach locations. After a decade of building funding, regulations, inventories, and replacement programs, the next phase is increasingly about execution: applying what successful communities have learned while finding ways to reach the last lead pipes that are likely to be the hardest to remove. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
July 29 · 25 min
Avoiding The Constant Infrastructure Triage
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 actual application, designing around workforce constraints, and verifying underground problems before committing crews and capital. Bridge connects conveyance efficiency to both water and energy loss, explaining that deteriorated pipes force utilities to pump more treated water to deliver the same amount to customers. He also argues that utilities increasingly need technical partners who can help match materials and products to the long-term demands of a project rather than simply supply a standard component. Klimas explains how workforce shortages are changing infrastructure design, including the use of lighter equipment and automated meter-reading features that reduce field labor and allow staff to focus on more critical maintenance. She also describes a broader shift from judging infrastructure mainly by upfront price toward considering durability, installation demands, maintenance needs, and total lifecycle cost. Braganz outlines a four-stage digital approach: predict where failure is most likely, monitor and confirm the condition, plan the appropriate response, and move the work into execution. That process can elevate a high-consequence water main serving a hospital, detect leaks before they surface, and show when an asset expected to fail is still performing well enough to remain in service. The opportunity is to break the cycle of waiting for infrastructure to fail and then scrambling to respond—replacing guesswork with evidence, preserving assets that still work, and directing limited labor and capital where intervention will matter most. Learn more about Oldcastle Infrastructure. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
July 25 · 26 min
The Digital Shift: From Reactive To Proactive
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 collect large amounts of information through control systems, maintenance records, hydraulic models, and asset-management platforms. The opportunity now is to connect those datasets and use AI-assisted analysis to identify which assets should be cleaned, repaired, rehabilitated, or replaced before they fail. That preventive approach matters because emergency infrastructure repairs can cost two to three times more than work that is planned and coordinated in advance. Digital planning tools can test thousands of infrastructure scenarios, helping utilities compare construction costs with the energy and operating expenses that accumulate over decades. Cantone also argues that growing familiarity with tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot is making utility employees more comfortable with specialized AI designed for water operations. Groundwater monitoring offers another example of the shift, with more frequent data helping operators track well performance, maintain production, and reduce the energy required for pumping. Smart meters and digital network models are also giving utilities a clearer view of non-revenue water, which Cantone says remains near 20 to 30 percent at many U.S. utilities compared with roughly 5 to 15 percent in parts of the United Kingdom. The next phase of digital water will depend on whether utilities can build reliable data systems—and enough operator trust—to use AI and other digital tools in everyday decisions. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
July 22 · 16 min
AI As The Water Operator's Copilot
Water utilities are rich in data but often struggle to turn decades of information into decisions that improve daily operations. In this episode, Travis Wagner of Trinnex explains how utilities can connect fragmented information, preserve workforce knowledge, and introduce artificial intelligence without sacrificing accuracy or security. Most utilities already collect extensive records through plant-control systems known as SCADA, geographic information systems, maintenance programs, and financial software. The first step is not necessarily collecting more data, but identifying the utility’s goals and making the existing information accessible across systems. That work is becoming more urgent as experienced operators retire and take decades of practical knowledge with them. Operations manuals, standard procedures, and historical records can help preserve some of that expertise when they are digitized and made easier for employees to search. Trinnex developed Raini as a utility-specific AI assistant that can answer questions about tasks such as maintaining a pump or backwashing a filter, while linking employees directly to the source document behind each response. The system is designed to acknowledge when it cannot find an answer, while human experts test its responses and utilities update outdated procedures that the technology brings to light. Wagner says the next generation of utility software could allow operators to request information, compare data, and generate dashboards through conversational tools, but progress should begin with clear governance, secure testing environments, and careful validation. Learn more about Trinnex. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet.
July 19 · 20 min
Keeping Up With PFAS Rules
PFAS regulation now has more moving parts, deadlines, and compliance pathways than ever, but the bottom-line advice for water utilities is simple: keep moving. In this episode, Amanda Canida of Black & Veatch explains how utilities can navigate the regulatory complexity while advancing the treatment projects needed to meet federal drinking water standards. Federal monitoring data indicates that roughly 10 percent of public water systems could be affected by the four-parts-per-trillion limits for PFOA and PFOS. Utilities can pursue cleaner water sources or blend supplies, but many are preparing to install treatment at a central plant or directly at an individual well. EPA has proposed retaining the PFOA and PFOS limits while restarting the regulatory process for several other PFAS compounds and creating a streamlined exemption pathway for systems that need more time. Once that exemption rule is finalized, utilities would have 180 days to apply and may need interim measures such as temporary treatment, alternate water supplies, source-control planning, or public education. The challenge is increasingly financial, as construction costs have risen and demand has grown for the equipment and treatment media needed to remove PFAS. Utilities are already slowing other capital projects, shifting money between priorities, and setting aside contingency funds to cover emerging treatment needs. Canida outlines how desktop evaluations and laboratory testing can help systems compare granular activated carbon and ion exchange before committing to longer pilot studies. Utilities must also calculate when treatment needs to be operating—not merely completed—to keep their annual PFAS averages below the federal limit by April 2029. The path forward is to pursue funding now, prepare customers for difficult decisions, and design treatment systems that can adapt as regulators address more of the thousands of PFAS compounds under review. Learn more about PFAS from Black & Veatch. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.
July 13 · 14 min
Entering An Era Of Advanced Water Treatment
Advanced water treatment is entering a new era. Utilities are moving beyond conventional treatment to tackle PFAS, expand water reuse, and secure new water supplies. That often means using technologies like membranes, ozone, activated carbon, and advanced filtration. Jaime Safulko of PCL Construction explains what's driving this wave of investment and why these projects are more complex than the treatment plants of the past. She shares lessons from the El Paso Pure Water Project, which is expected to become the nation's first direct potable reuse facility. She also highlights recycled water projects in California and new PFAS treatment facilities in Colorado that are putting advanced technologies into practice. The conversation explores why collaboration has become just as important as the treatment technology itself. Bringing project partners together earlier helps utilities evaluate options, reduce risk, and avoid costly surprises during construction. Looking ahead, Safulko expects water reuse to become much more common. She also sees more regional partnerships and a new generation of treatment technologies that improve efficiency while lowering energy use and operating costs. Learn more about PCL Construction. waterloop is a nonprofit news outlet exploring solutions for water sustainability.

Showing 1–20 of 34 episodes