A Shift at Two Rivers: Water Career Paths and Choices

At six in the morning, Marisol Vega badges into the Two Rivers Water Reclamation Facility. The plant cleans the town's used water before returning it to the river. It runs every hour of every day, so operators like Marisol work in shifts around the clock.

Her first stop is the control room. Screens show how fast water is flowing and how much oxygen the treatment tanks hold. Marisol writes the readings in a log. Then she walks the plant. She checks pumps, listens for odd sounds, and collects a water sample to test in the small lab. If a number drifts too high or too low, she adjusts a valve or a chemical feed to bring it back in range. Her job is to keep the water within safe limits before it leaves the plant.

Marisol did not need a four-year college degree to start. She finished high school, trained on the job, and passed a state exam to earn her operator license. Operator licenses come in classes, often labeled one through four. Each higher class calls for more experience and a harder exam, and it lets an operator run a larger or more complex plant. Marisol is working toward her next class now.

The pay can support a family. Operators earned a median of $60,020 a year in May 2025. The lowest-paid tenth earned less than $39,110, and the highest-paid tenth earned over $91,060, usually at large plants or in senior roles. In 2025 the country employed about 131,000 water and wastewater operators.

The field also needs new people. About 10,000 openings for water and wastewater operators are expected each year, on average, from 2025 to 2035. That number is for operators. The total number of operator jobs is expected to shrink by about 6 percent over that time. The openings still come up because workers who retire or move to other kinds of work must be replaced, and all of the openings come from those replacements rather than from brand-new plants. The workforce is also aging. EPA estimates that about one-third of water workers will be eligible to retire in the next 10 years. Young workers are scarce: in 2016, only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers. Marisol has noticed how many of her coworkers are close to retiring.

Operators are only one part of the picture. Some water jobs start with a short certificate program at a community college. Others need a four-year degree. Engineers who design pipes, pumps, and treatment plants usually study civil or environmental engineering in college. Scientists who study rivers, groundwater, or public health often earn a graduate degree after that. All of these paths are real ways into water work, and none is better than the others. The right path depends on the job a person wants and the schooling that fits their life.

At the end of her walk, Marisol checks the river outfall, where the cleaned water flows back out. The water looks clear. She heads back to the control room to log the last of her readings before the next operator takes over.

1. What three things does the passage say Marisol needed to become a licensed operator?
2. About how many operator job openings are expected each year, and what causes them?
3. Using the table, name one water job that usually starts with a four-year college degree.
4. The passage says about one-third of water workers will be eligible to retire in the next 10 years, and that in 2016 only about 10 percent were 24 or younger. What does this suggest about the years ahead for water jobs?
5. The passage says none of the education paths is better than the others. Use two details from the text to explain why it makes that point.
6. Marisol's plant runs every hour of every day. Explain why that fact matters for the people who work there.