Workforce concerns have ranked in the American Water Works Association (AWWA)’s top ten sector challenges for years. But in 2026, the question has shifted from how to replace retiring workers to something harder: how to stop institutional knowledge from disappearing with them. When AWWA published its 2026 State of the Water Industry report in March, workforce emerged once again as one of the most pressing concerns facing utilities across the United States. With 21% of employees eligible to retire within five years and vacancy rates averaging 9%, the scale of the challenge is hard to ignore. We sat down with AWWA CEO David LaFrance to dig deeper into what the data is really telling us, and what the sector needs to do to prepare.

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