Crawling Out of the Graveyard: Practical Learnings from Utilities Transitioning from 24/7 Staffing
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 10:30 AM to 11:00 AM · 30 min. (US/Central)
New Orleans Convention Center
Traditional Technical Session
Room 343
Information
While most WWTPs operate with 24/7 on-site staffing, this is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain due to workforce shortages, labor costs, and operator burnout. Simultaneously, utilities face growing expectations for reliability, compliance, and resilience. The question is no longer whether technology can support unstaffed operation, but whether utilities are willing to rethink long-standing assumptions about risk, control, and operator presence; how can we improve engagement and quality of life for WWTP operators?
Several utilities have risen to this challenge through automation, providing digital tools for operators to better run their facilities and providing peace of mind when no one is on-site. Transition toward unstaffed nights and weekends is supported by automation, remote monitoring, targeted on-call response systems, and, most importantly, a paradigm shift. For many organizations, this shift represents a cultural and operational leap. Leaving behind the graveyard shift requires rethinking risk tolerance, modernizing control and communication systems, and redesigning operating procedures to ensure reliability without physical presence.
The experiences from the Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority (VVWRA) in California and Aarhus Vand (AV) in Denmark demonstrate that successful transitions to unstaffed operation are possible across different regulatory frameworks and cultures. While the technical solutions varied, both utilities followed a common trajectory grounded in data quality, automation maturity, and organizational alignment.
In both utilities, automation was not implemented as a single project but as a deliberate progression. Initial efforts focused on improving data reliability and operator trust in instrumentation. Only after operators consistently relied on process data were automated control strategies expanded, followed by alarm rationalization, remote workflows, and risk assessments.
Approach:
For both VVWRA and AV, the approach to automation began with data. Not necessarily more data, but good practices and access to relevant process data. These data can then inform decisions regarding process operations, enabling operators to tune relevant control handles. Naturally, the next prerequisite to remote operation was automated equipment, ensuring frequent manual operations could be accomplished remotely by simply changing the setpoint from a control structure to valve positions and pump speeds.
With these prerequisites in place, advanced SCADA programming for process optimization with critical alarms was implemented to automatically execute operational workflows, restart equipment after power failures, and monitor the process for upsets that might require manual intervention.
Last, an exercise in lean practices for process management was needed to develop risk assessments around the consequence and likelihood of issues that were previously mitigated by 24-hr onsite monitoring by operations staff.
Remote Data:
Transitioning to remote operation required close coordination between operations, and IT teams. Both utilities addressed challenges related to network segmentation, secure remote access, alarm delivery pathways, and data governance. Nightly callouts were experienced during initial phases of remote operation, the frequency of which were incrementally reduced through instrumentation, data validation, and risk analyses to reduce the number of critical alarms. Outside of process control technology, the fleet of security cameras were expanded to allow remote visual assessment of the facilities and process tanks.
Risk Assessment:
The process required visible leadership and meaningful involvement from operations staff. By evaluating both consequence and likelihood of failures, teams were able to distinguish between risks that required capital investment, risks that could be mitigated through automation, and risks that could be consciously accepted.
For higher risk items like manual restart of pumps after a power blips or cleaning of filters for pump seal water, capital improvements to the VFDs and pump seal technology were initiated. For lower risk items like non-uniform loading of screenings or grit into a dumpster due to limited manual raking operations, the risk was either accepted or added to a longer-term plan for capital improvement with auto-raking dumpsters.
Significance:
DHI analysis of the level of automation of other US facilities has shown that most critical processes are already in a position to be left unstaffed overnight. While operator rounds help ensure reliability of mechanical systems, many tasks are legacy from a period of upset conditions or from before upgrades to process equipment.
The ultimate result for AV is fully automated wastewater treatment, only staffing operators onsite from 07:00-15:00 on weekdays. VVWRA has successfully transitioned all operations staff from night and swing shifts to days, without losing any staff.
Several utilities have risen to this challenge through automation, providing digital tools for operators to better run their facilities and providing peace of mind when no one is on-site. Transition toward unstaffed nights and weekends is supported by automation, remote monitoring, targeted on-call response systems, and, most importantly, a paradigm shift. For many organizations, this shift represents a cultural and operational leap. Leaving behind the graveyard shift requires rethinking risk tolerance, modernizing control and communication systems, and redesigning operating procedures to ensure reliability without physical presence.
The experiences from the Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority (VVWRA) in California and Aarhus Vand (AV) in Denmark demonstrate that successful transitions to unstaffed operation are possible across different regulatory frameworks and cultures. While the technical solutions varied, both utilities followed a common trajectory grounded in data quality, automation maturity, and organizational alignment.
In both utilities, automation was not implemented as a single project but as a deliberate progression. Initial efforts focused on improving data reliability and operator trust in instrumentation. Only after operators consistently relied on process data were automated control strategies expanded, followed by alarm rationalization, remote workflows, and risk assessments.
Approach:
For both VVWRA and AV, the approach to automation began with data. Not necessarily more data, but good practices and access to relevant process data. These data can then inform decisions regarding process operations, enabling operators to tune relevant control handles. Naturally, the next prerequisite to remote operation was automated equipment, ensuring frequent manual operations could be accomplished remotely by simply changing the setpoint from a control structure to valve positions and pump speeds.
With these prerequisites in place, advanced SCADA programming for process optimization with critical alarms was implemented to automatically execute operational workflows, restart equipment after power failures, and monitor the process for upsets that might require manual intervention.
Last, an exercise in lean practices for process management was needed to develop risk assessments around the consequence and likelihood of issues that were previously mitigated by 24-hr onsite monitoring by operations staff.
Remote Data:
Transitioning to remote operation required close coordination between operations, and IT teams. Both utilities addressed challenges related to network segmentation, secure remote access, alarm delivery pathways, and data governance. Nightly callouts were experienced during initial phases of remote operation, the frequency of which were incrementally reduced through instrumentation, data validation, and risk analyses to reduce the number of critical alarms. Outside of process control technology, the fleet of security cameras were expanded to allow remote visual assessment of the facilities and process tanks.
Risk Assessment:
The process required visible leadership and meaningful involvement from operations staff. By evaluating both consequence and likelihood of failures, teams were able to distinguish between risks that required capital investment, risks that could be mitigated through automation, and risks that could be consciously accepted.
For higher risk items like manual restart of pumps after a power blips or cleaning of filters for pump seal water, capital improvements to the VFDs and pump seal technology were initiated. For lower risk items like non-uniform loading of screenings or grit into a dumpster due to limited manual raking operations, the risk was either accepted or added to a longer-term plan for capital improvement with auto-raking dumpsters.
Significance:
DHI analysis of the level of automation of other US facilities has shown that most critical processes are already in a position to be left unstaffed overnight. While operator rounds help ensure reliability of mechanical systems, many tasks are legacy from a period of upset conditions or from before upgrades to process equipment.
The ultimate result for AV is fully automated wastewater treatment, only staffing operators onsite from 07:00-15:00 on weekdays. VVWRA has successfully transitioned all operations staff from night and swing shifts to days, without losing any staff.
