A trade conference in North Falmouth this week highlighted efforts to develop new talent for the drinking water and wastewater industries.
With both fields facing an aging workforce, companies have struggled to bring in younger workers.
The water company Veolia is in its second year of a partnership with Upper Cape Tech to get students interested in the job.
Taylor Landers is wrapping up her junior year at UCT. She says she enjoyed her internship at a local water plant so much that she’ll be working there full-time this summer.
“I love my job. I work at the Hyannis Veolia plant,” she said. “I do a little bit of everything. Our day-to-day changes based on what we need.”
At Taylor's plant, Veolia staff operate the Barnstable drinking water system.
According to Veolia’s workforce development leader Scott Beeny, nearly one-third of the clean water industry is over 55, while less than one-twentieth of the workforce is under 26.
“We need to start getting an infusion of this young talent to start working with the people with the institutional knowledge of how to run these plants,” he said. “These kids are knocking it out of the park.”
Beeny said the shortage of young people in the field is due to a lack of awareness about the job.
“No one really knows about this career,” he said. “You put these students in a situation where you're asking them to pick what they want to eat without looking at the full menu. How do they know that these careers are out there when they've never been able to experience it?”
That’s why UCT junior Emma Longfield was glad to have the opportunity to give water treatment a try.
“I love learning about this stuff,” she said. “I didn't even know I loved learning about the stuff until I started this internship.”
Emma is on track to be fully licensed as an operator of a drinking water supply facility by the time she graduates next year. She sees a career in water treatment as a cost-effective alternative to college.
“I can go take these tests and make the same amount of money I would after college without dropping $100,000 on a degree,” she said.
UCT senior Julian Christopher said his internship with Veolia challenged the typical expectations of what the job would be like.
“They think it’s going to smell and it’s going to be gross, but I got there and I started sniffing around,” he said. “It’s not gross. Sure, there can be gross aspects of the job, but that’s any career.”
Julian says he enjoyed learning about the mechanical work involved in maintaining a water treatment system.
