Access to safe drinking water depends not only on infrastructure, but on the people who operate and maintain it. At the University of Kentucky, Diana Byrne, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering in the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, is addressing long-standing challenges facing small water utilities.
Byrne received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award with $547,471 over five years for her work.
When Byrne joined UK in 2020, she began working with the Appalachian Community Technical Assistance and Training Program, an university-community partnership that supports small, rural water utilities throughout Appalachia. The program focuses on helping utilities address challenges unique to their communities, including technical training and workforce preparation.
"These are the people who are on the ground and run our water systems, making sure that we get water that we drink safely every day," Byrne said.
Among other support, the program provides workshops to help operators learn key topics such as math and hydraulics which are covered on their licensing exams.
Through this work, Byrne began to see a growing problem affecting water utilities statewide: a shrinking workforce paired with aging infrastructure and declining customer bases.
"The infrastructure is getting older, pipes are breaking and we have water loss," Byrne said. "Also, a lot of the workforce is close to retirement and there just aren't people to fill that gap."
According to a 2022 Kentucky Water and Wastewater Workforce survey led by UK faculty Lindell Ormsbee, Ph.D., 30% of operators planned to retire within six years, increasing concerns about workforce shortages.
One aspect of Byrne's work involves collaboration with correctional facilities to expand training opportunities for incarcerated individuals preparing to reenter the workforce.
"The Bell County Forestry Camp has water treatment plants inside the prison," Byrne said. "They've been working with some of the incarcerated men to learn about operating a water treatment plant. We're trying to bring our workshops inside the prison to benefit those possible operators and engage them in the workforce upon reentry."
Beyond infrastructure and workforce development, Byrne hopes the project's impact will be felt through the people involved, including students, utilities and future operators.
"These problems are decades long, complex problems. I hope from an engineering perspective we're a drop in the bucket or a step along the way in helping those utilities," Byrne said.
"Mostly, I hope that we help people in some way."
The CAREER Award is one of the "most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization," according to NSF.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Number 2440917. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
