Inside Selby Reach: Careers at a Water Reclamation Plant

Theo had passed the Selby Reach Water Reclamation Facility a hundred times without knowing what it did. A reclamation plant cleans used water until it is safe to return to the river. On his class tour, he learned that keeping that plant running takes people with very different kinds of training.

His first guide was Marcus, an operator. Operators run the pumps, tanks, and controls that move water through the plant. Marcus explained that he started right after high school. He learned the job through on-the-job training, then earned a state license by passing an exam. Licenses come in classes, numbered one through four, and each higher class takes more experience and another exam. "Each time I earn a higher class," he said, "my pay goes up with it." Operators earned a median of 60,020 dollars a year in 2025. The highest-paid tenth earned over 91,060 dollars, while the lowest-paid tenth earned less than 39,110 dollars.

Next, Theo met Priya in the testing lab. Priya is a water quality analyst. She checks samples all day to make sure the cleaned water meets its limits. She earned a two-year certificate at a community college before she was hired. "You do not need a four-year degree to start here," she told him, "but you do need to be careful and patient with numbers."

Upstairs, an environmental engineer named Dana was reviewing plans for a new tank. Dana finished a four-year engineering degree and now designs upgrades for the plant. She said engineers and operators depend on each other. "I can draw a better tank," she said, "but Marcus knows what actually works at two in the morning."

Before the tour ended, the plant manager mentioned one more path. Some people go on to graduate school to become hydrologists or public health researchers, studying how water moves and how it affects communities. None of these paths, the manager said, is the "right" one. The plant needs all of them.

The manager also explained why the tour mattered. About 131,000 people worked as water and wastewater operators in the country in 2025, and roughly 10,000 openings for operators are expected each year, on average, through 2035. Those openings are not new jobs. In fact, the total number of operator jobs is expected to shrink by about 6 percent. The openings come because workers retire or move on. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about one-third of the water workforce will be eligible to retire in the next ten years. A 2018 Brookings Institution study also found that in 2016 only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers. "In ten years," the manager said, "a lot of us will be gone, and someone has to run the plant." Theo left thinking that the building he had ignored for years might one day need him.

1. What does a water reclamation plant do, according to the passage?
2. How did Marcus become an operator? Cite the steps the passage describes.
3. Name two different education paths the passage describes for water-sector work.
4. The passage says many openings for operators come from retirements. Which detail in the passage supports that idea?
5. The passage says an operator's license "comes in classes." Using context, explain what that means.
6. How does the passage avoid saying that one education path is better than the others? Use details.
7. Why might the water sector need to hire many new workers over the next ten years? Support your answer with the passage.