Ethics Supports Operational Decision‐Making

Water and wastewater operators make hundreds of decisions every shift. Some are technical—flows, pressures, chemical feeds, maintenance priorities. Others are quieter but just as important: how a sample gets collected; how a sanitary sewer overflow gets reported; whether a shortcut is really a shortcut; or how to respond when a supervisor, contractor, coworker, or elected official applies pressure. These are ethical decisions, whether they are called that or not.