The Average Salary of Water Distribution Employees
Water treatment and distribution system employees, along with workers in the treatment of wastewater, operate or control machine systems to treat and move water or liquid waste. As of 2009, their average salaries were close to $40,000, mostly in positions offered through the local government.
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Wages
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Water treatment plant and distribution system employees earned average wages of $19.21 per hour, or $39,950 per year, as of May 2009, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey. Median wages for this position were $18.48 hourly, or $38,430 yearly. The BLS states that salaries ranged from $23,710 or less for the lowest-paid 10 percent to $59,860 or more for the highest-paid 10 percent. PayScale reported total pay packages ranging from $31,218 to $51,951 for water treatment operators as of August 2010, based on 618 survey responses.
Biggest Employers
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Popular industries for waste treatment operators, as listed by PayScale, include water utilities, municipalities, water treatment products and services, waste treatment and disposal, and water generation, transmission and distribution. The BLS reported that local governments employed 86,130 water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators as of 2008, with water, sewage and other systems employing 11,770. Wastewater treatment and disposal companies employed 1,820 workers. Local governments paid the highest salaries for waste treatment operators, with an annual average salary of $40,020 as of May 2008.
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Top-Paying Cities
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The top-paying metropolitan areas for water and liquid waste treatment plant and system operators in 2008, according to the BLS, were the Oakland-Fremont-Hayward and Vallejo-Fairfield regions of California, followed by Fairbanks, Alaska in third place. Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada ranked fourth, while Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, California was fifth. Average annual salaries for 2008 in these regions ranged from a high of $71,950 down to $64,110.
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- Photo Credit Water treatment plant image by Andrei Merkulov from Fotolia.com
