When a water crisis hits, the message can matter almost as much as the response itself. At Catalyst 2025 inside Discovery World, crisis communications expert Emira Plowshares put utility leaders through high-pressure simulations designed to mirror the chaos of real emergencies. The goal wasn’t polished PR — it was preparing…
Millions of Americans still live without running water or basic sanitation — a reality advocates on Capitol Hill say the country can no longer ignore. About 100 water access advocates recently fanned out across more than 70 House and Senate offices carrying the National Roadmap to Close the Water Access…
A confusing utility bill can become a crisis fast — especially for customers living on a fixed income. After hearing from a 77-year-old resident who spent weeks trying to resolve a water bill issue and access assistance, Quisha Light began rethinking how utilities interact with the public. At the Portland…
America’s drinking water infrastructure depends on more than 2 million miles of pipe buried beneath streets and communities across the country. In this episode of How Water Works, Jeff Mason leads a tour inside the U.S. Pipe foundry in Alabama to show how ductile iron pipe is manufactured — from…
Water utilities are beginning to move from reacting to failures toward predicting them before they happen. Mick O’Dwyer of SwiftComply says compliance programs have traditionally been reactive — responding after a backflow device fails, a sewer blockage forms, or contamination risks emerge. But with larger datasets and smarter technology, utilities…
Water utilities are starting to break down internal silos as compliance pressures grow more complex. Mick O’Dwyer of SwiftComply says utilities across the U.S. are increasingly consolidating programs like backflow prevention, FOG management, industrial pretreatment, and stormwater compliance into shared compliance offices instead of operating them as separate teams. The…
Water built Winnipeg. Now Winnipeg is racing to adapt to water. At The Forks — where the Red River and Assiniboine River meet — people have gathered for roughly 6,000 years. Indigenous communities, trade routes, commerce, and eventually a major Canadian city all grew around these waterways. But the rivers…
The people protecting water systems didn’t sign up to spend their days buried in paperwork. Utilities across the U.S. are increasingly turning to digital tools and automation to reduce the administrative workload tied to inspections, compliance programs, and environmental reporting. Mick O’Dwyer of SwiftComply says the goal isn’t replacing workers…
💧 H2O INTRO 👤 Meet Anjali Gupta, Operations Program Manager at DC Water Infrastructure decisions shape communities — often in ways most people never see. At DC Water, Anjali Gupta created a GIS-based operational tool that combines asset condition data with environmental justice information to help prioritize repairs and upgrades…
With water... “...comes dignity.” “...comes education.” “...comes progress.” “...comes power for people.” “...comes stability, prosperity and health.” “...comes community.” “...we can sustain future generations.” “...we’re all the same.” Those were some of the reflections shared by attendees at the Vessel Collective convening in Washington, D.C., where organizations from across the…
Most people never think about the hidden compliance programs quietly protecting their drinking water and sewer systems every single day. Mick O’Dwyer of SwiftComply describes backflow prevention, FOG (fats, oils, and grease) programs, and industrial pretreatment as the “immune system” of water infrastructure — the behind-the-scenes work designed to stop…
Water utilities are quietly strengthening the “immune system” of our water infrastructure, using compliance programs and technology to prevent pollution, protect drinking water, and reduce sewer overflows before they happen. In this episode, Mick O’Dwyer of SwiftComply shares how his journey from wastewater engineer in Dublin to tech founder led…
Standing along the Colorado River high in the Rocky Mountains, it’s hard not to feel the weight of what this river means to the American West. The Colorado River provides drinking water for about 40 million people, helps irrigate roughly 5 million acres of farmland, powers economies such as recreation…
I’m on a rock in the middle of Boulder Creek as snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains rushes past me. This week I’m traveling across Colorado filming 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐈𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐞𝐬, a new waterloop and WaterNow series exploring how communities are advancing water conservation. I’m visiting a dozen communities to document…
Nature is doing some of the heavy lifting in Winnipeg’s flood strategy. At FortWhyte Alive, a former industrial clay quarry has been transformed into a sprawling network of wetlands, ponds, and prairie designed to work with water instead of against it. These landscapes capture stormwater, slow runoff, absorb flood flows,…
The effort to close America’s water and sanitation access gap made its way directly to Capitol Hill this week. Members of the Vessel Collective spent the day meeting with lawmakers and congressional staff to discuss a new national roadmap aimed at ensuring every person in the United States has access…
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer spoke to the Vessel Collective today in Washington, D.C. about how the agency’s work aligns with the effort to close the water and sanitation access gap in the country. In addition to expressing her personal commitment to the issue,…
One of the keys to accelerating progress on water access and sanitation in the U.S. may be simple: share solutions openly and tackle common challenges together. That’s exactly what’s happening this week at the Vessel Collective convening in Washington, D.C., where representatives from more than 130 organizations are exchanging ideas,…
A national plan is now on the table to bring running water and sanitation to every home in the United States. The Vessel Collective’s new roadmap sets a clear goal: universal access by 2040. It starts with the more than 2 million Americans who still lack basic service—and focuses on…
Just south of Winnipeg, the Red River Floodway quietly determines the fate of a city. Built after the catastrophic 1950 Red River Flood—which forced 100,000 people from their homes and destroyed 10,000 more—this system is one of the most ambitious flood control projects in North America. Stretching 30 miles long,…
Not another water report. An action plan. Kabir Thatte of the Vessel Collective says a new national roadmap to close the U.S. water access gap is designed to move beyond policy ideas and into measurable results. He describes the plan as an implementation framework—with built-in accountability—focused on tracking whether fewer…
More than 2 million people in the United States live without running water or a working toilet—and the true number could be far higher. It’s a crisis hidden in plain sight, affecting communities from tribal lands and rural Appalachia to border colonias and even neighborhoods just beyond city infrastructure. In…
A $6 million international investment is turning a Great Lakes utility into a proving ground for next-generation water treatment. At the Cleveland Water Alliance, new technology is now producing high-concentration hypochlorite on site—replacing the need to ship chlorine long distances by rail. The system, developed by a company spun out…
Nanobubbles—microscopic pockets of gas invisible to the human eye—are emerging as a powerful tool to improve water treatment and management. In this episode of How Water Works, Travis Loop visits Moleaer Inc. in Los Angeles to break down how nanobubbles work and why they’re gaining traction across industries. Thousands of…