Wastewater Technician Spotlight

Wastewater Technicians use their knowledge of chemistry and complex treatment plants to provide clean water. Whether they’re transforming well water into drinking water for workers or removing impurities from the water in drilling or mining operations, Wastewater Technicians always work to return water to a purer state.

What a typical day looks like:

Wastewater Technicians do a lot of monitoring. Using a touch screen tablet and physically patrolling the water treatment plant, they monitor pressures, temperatures, process levels and flows. Their day is a flood of gauges, meters and recording instruments.

They also use their knowledge of chemistry to take chemical samples and test them on-site or send them off-site for analysis. The results ensure their company meets guidelines around things like acidity, temperature and ammonia levels. If the plant is filtering well water for drinking, the Wastewater Technician may test it for iron and manganese.

As wastewater treatment plants are often in remote locations, it’s common for Wastewater Technicians to work in shifts that require extensive time away from home. Fortunately, these shifts are balanced by longer rotations off the job.

The kinds of problems Waste Water Technician solve at work:

A Wastewater Technician is always trying reach new levels in water purity. They tweak processes, trying to find a good pump setting that results in cleaner water or the ideal ratio of solids to water in a biological tank. All of these tweaks are driven by the measures they take. If the pressure is increasing in one of the plant’s lines, for example, a Wastewater Technician might discover a filter requires cleaning.

Skills used most on the job:

Filtering water takes skills. Aside from a command of chemistry, it helps to be mechanically inclined and to have a knack for troubleshooting under pressure. Because the only thing more refreshing than a clean glass of water is a well-rounded Wastewater Technician.