WLI 2025 Final Project: From Triage to Trust: Building a Vision and Collaboration for Infrastructure Renewal

Each year the final project is a major part of the Water Leadership Institute. The WLI 2025 cohorts wrote articles on turning challenges into strengths through resilient leadership.  

Across the country, people rely on critical water infrastructure every day – it is the backbone of daily life. However, this infrastructure is not just the pipes and water resource recovery facilities that the public often thinks of when they consider the water sector. Infrastructure also consists of the IT systems, workforce, and governance that support it. Unfortunately, water sector leaders know all too well the hard truth about critical water infrastructure – this “backbone” is showing its age and it’s starting to crack.

According to the 2025 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Infrastructure Report Card, the three categories of water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure range from “Mediocre, Requires Attention” to “Poor, at Risk.” Combined, these three categories are estimated to require $1.65 trillion in investments over the next ten years. On top of physical infrastructure, utilities face challenges and competing priorities for investment in an aging workforce and IT systems.

According to a 2018 Report from the Brookings Institute over 50% of water professionals are eligible to retire from their jobs within the next three to five years. Simultaneously, water sector professionals recognize the importance of replacing outdated IT systems with the State of the Water Industry Report 2025 published by the American Water Works Association identifying technology and data management of high importance for innovation. With all these competing priorities, the challenge of aging infrastructure goes from bad to worse when we talk about the existing funding gap of almost a trillion dollars.

The good news? Utilities and water sector professionals recognize that this is a critical issue. In the State of the Water Industry Report 2025 published by the American Water Works Association financing for capital improvements and infrastructure renewal and replacement ranked as top concerns nationally. With leaders recognizing the scale of this issue, how can utilities and the communities they serve translate recognition into action? Leadership is at the forefront. Specifically, providing visionary leadership by establishing a clear framework, and fostering collaboration by uniting community stakeholders around a shared objective.

Leading with Vision
With a trillion-dollar funding gap, not all aging infrastructure can be funded immediately. Leaders need to set a vision for the organization to follow while establishing a process for planning, prioritizing, and executing the vision. The scale of this effort requires everyone in the organization to move in the same direction. A shared vision empowers all, brings clarity to what may have been an overwhelming, directionless task, and can lead to transformational change.

Implementing a problem-solving framework can be an effective tool for developing this vision and process. There are many proven frameworks to choose from depending on an organization’s goals. A few well-known models include:

• Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model: Provides a framework for leading organizational change
• ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement): Focuses on the human element by building awareness and buy-in for change.
• Procsi Change Triangle: Brings together principles of leadership, project management, and change management to achieve success.
• Effective Utility Management: Provides a framework and tools for proactive planning, protecting infrastructure investments, and increasing resiliency
• Strategic Doing: Focuses on identifying opportunities, prioritizing them, and then acting.
• Enterprise Project Management: Brings a strategic vision to overseeing various projects occurring simultaneously across different departments to achieve a cohesive vision and goal.

While all these frameworks differ slightly, choosing one, or multiple is an excellent step for organizations to define their vision and their process for solving aging infrastructure problems. In 2020, Denver Water put this into practice by selecting and implementing a comprehensive Enterprise Project Management Framework to develop a 20-year forecast model that dramatically improved resource and capacity planning. The problem didn’t shrink, but by evaluating it through the new framework, the leadership was able to identify an effective path forward balancing a multitude of infrastructure projects across departments and successfully implement change to reach an overarching goal.

Leading through Collaboration
While using frameworks to prioritize aging infrastructure within a utility is important, it is only one part of the solution. Aging infrastructure is a problem for everyone, and utilities need the support of the public and other stakeholders to solve this problem. Public trust enables long-term investment and planning.

In its report on Public Outreach for Integrated Wastewater and Stormwater Planning, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) advises utilities to tailor both the content and delivery method of their communications to the priorities of their target audience. To lead with impact, leaders need to know their purpose and identify the best formats to communicate their message to the public.

Purposes of Public Outreach

Transparency: Share information openly to build trust and accountability.

Behavior Change: Communicate strategically to promote better practices.

Co-Creation: Partner with communities to shape solutions.

Visibility: Engage the public to raise awareness and understanding.

Compliance: Clarify policies to support regulatory adherence.

Creative Formats for Public Outreach

Physical Presence. Events that build strong connections through face-to-face interaction and shared activites.

Digital Engagement. Provide increased reach and accessibility.

Creative/Viral Content. Boost visibility and dive higher conversion rates.

Two-Way Communcation. Establish feedback loops to empower stakeholders.

Case Study: Plant City Utilities – Creative Public Outreach

To make water conservation and water resource management resonate with residents, Plant City Utilities in Florida launched a playful, multi-channel campaign built around their trusted Utility Chief Plant Operator. Using parody videos themed around superheroes, westerns, and boy bands, they turned technical topics into engaging, memorable content.

The campaign expanded to include a music video, student art contest, and a water conservation mascot, building trust, sparking conversation, and keeping the message alive across age groups. By leaning into humor, creativity, and familiarity, Plant City transformed public outreach into a tool for lasting engagement and awareness.

This demonstrates how effectively pairing purpose (visibility) with a creative format (viral content) can help utilities facilitate public understanding and support as they work to solve immense challenges related to gaining infrastructure issues.

Not a Solution – But a Start
While implementing a vision using a framework and collaborating with stakeholders will not solve all the challenges associated with the water sector’s aging infrastructure, these two steps offer industry leaders a path to make the challenge more manageable by aligning resources, building public trust, and driving coordinated, long-term investment in sustainable infrastructure solutions.

Authors:

Bianca Milano, Jeff Hlad, Daniela Lopez, Sian Bashkiroff, JP Birmingham, Janet Frost, Eric Nash