Tucson Water employee sounds alarm about staff shortage

TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) - A Tucson Water employee said they are losing staff and it’s leading to a troubling shortage.

“We are watching employees walk out as I speak in the water quality and operations division,” said the employee, who asked to remain anonymous.

The worker said Tucson Water is having to move employees from other departments to help.

“We’re pulling people from other areas and other departments to help specifically cover the operations division which is overseeing the water quality and drinking water parameters,” the worker said.

The employee, who has worked for the city for over a decade, said three people have left because of the vaccine mandate in the last week.

“(We’re) feeling dispensable to our employer that we’ve dedicated our lives to,” the worker said. “In my opinion, it could come to a head where we can’t provide the level of service we were before the mandates.”

While the worker said they’re fearful for the future, they want to reassure Tucsonans the drinking water is safe and they will do everything in their power to make sure it stays that way.

“I drink Tucson water and I care about the quality of it,” the employee said.

We reached out to the city of Tucson about the staff shortage impacting clean drinking water.

“Tucson Water is prepared to continue delivering safe secure clean drinking water,” the city said. “The utility has plans, procedures, practices, and redundancies in place to ensure continuity of operations in the face of reduced staffing and other emergency scenarios.”

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