When I talk to longtime clean-water plant managers about staffing, it usually turns out they had more people on their teams 15 to 20 years ago than today.Some of that no doubt has to do with belt-tightening — budgets now are about as stressed as they’ve ever been. But a bigger reason most likely is automation: Better technology means fewer people can accomplish as much or more.So, does automation cost jobs? No one really likes to talk about that side of things — but the simple fact is, yes, machines do replace people. But, more to the point, what they
