But customers seeking high-quality, low-cost solutions will continue to depend on industry firms. In a new survey of nearly 425 utility professionals, Arcadis North America found that 90% said innovation was imperative to improve operations, while only 40% now embrace it as a way to do business. “There is no road map for them to follow,” says Jason Carter, firm innovation expert. Arcadis, working through two water research groups, developed an eight-step guide for utilities to implement innovation that “generates sustainability dividends,” such as better demand management.

Starting construction shortly in the Houston region, a $1.2-billion upgrade of the Northeast water purification plant will expand it to 400 million gallons a day from 80 million mgd through 2024 and cut reliance on groundwater. Design-construction-operations team CDM Smith and CH2M calls it the largest progressive design-build project of its kind underway in the U.S.; it will include adaptations for variable raw-water conditions and cost savings for power, chemicals and residuals disposal. Hazen & Sawyer is leading a $25-million demonstration, along with CH2M, in the Hampton Roads, Va., area to test aquifer recharge and other approaches that would be a first on the East Coast and could generate $1 billion in future plant projects, says local utility engineering manager Bruce Husselbee.

TetraTech has seen more interest in water-distribution assessments since the Flint, Mich., tainted-water crisis began in 2015, says Executive Vice President Leslie Shoemaker. The firm also notes a gain in water-reuse projects in southern states where supply is constrained. In May, Santa Barbara, Calif., reactivated a desalination plant, idle since 1992; it now will supply 30% of demand. But one global desalination forecast predicts the sector’s five-year growth will fall below 5% for the first time in 20 years, due to financial issues in Middle East countries.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has promised to accelerate Superfund cleanups of hazardous waste, but a proposed 2018 budget cut in the program raises skepticism that it will happen. If the EPA moves ahead on changes pushed by industry, coal-ash disposal and new protections for wastewater impoundments at power-plant sites—except in states with their own mandates—also face regulatory limbo. Black & Veatch Associate Vice President Andy Byers says some utilities are going ahead with ash-pond closures under current federal rules, but others are taking a wait-and-see attitude.