Meet Frank Davis, Water Quality Project Specialist from Pittsburgh Water’s water quality team. Frank plays a crucial role in monitoring the drinking water we produce to ensure every drop delivered from the Pittsburgh Water Treatment Plant is safe and of the highest quality for the half million people we serve each day.

Tell us more about your role.

My role has evolved a lot since I started, ranging from chemist to environmental compliance coordinator, but now I function as a water quality investigator! Whenever there is something amiss in the distribution system, I go out to investigate. If a customer calls in with a water quality complaint, I investigate those as well. I also compile and submit monthly and yearly water quality data to the PA DEP, like what’s found in Pittsburgh Water’s 2024 Annual Drinking Water Report.

What made you decide to pursue a career in your field?

I didn’t initially pursue a career in water. I started working here as a contractor in 2016, running experiments at the Pittsburgh Water Treatment Plant, trying to determine the best corrosion inhibitor to manage our elevated lead levels. At the time, I had experience in environmental water quality, but none in drinking water. While I was here, I learned about all the complexities of water treatment and distribution. I love thinking about systems, and we have an extensive and complex treatment and distribution system that I found extremely interesting. I also saw all the work that we do behind the scenes and how important it is to the City of Pittsburgh, and I wanted to be a part of it.

How do you contribute to the delivery of safe, clean drinking water for all our communities?

If a customer calls in about brown water, or if a sampling site has a water quality parameter that falls outside of our target range, I go on-site to investigate. Many water quality issues are caused by dead-ends, branched segments of our distribution system that do not loop back into the main pipeline, and a common way to fix them is through hydrant flushing. I started out at Pittsburgh Water flushing hydrants, and now I direct the lab’s hydrant flushing program.

What are your favorite challenges to tackle?

I love getting to the bottom of an issue when an anomaly arises. Has it always been this way or did something change? Is it caused by a valve that was left shut or did a chlorine booster pump break? Will flushing the area once be enough, or do we need to install an automatic flusher, or do we need to loop a dead-end? I like to think about and solve these problems using my experience, the knowledge of my coworkers, and the system map.

What’s an interesting fact we don’t know about you?

I got fifth place out of 10 in the angel food cake contest at the Washington County Fair in 2016! It might not seem like much, but I beat five grandmas who have been doing it their whole life with just a year of practice! There were many dirty looks.

What’s something you’re planning on doing in the next year that you’ve never done?

I’m attending a three-day workshop called Understanding Spiders on an island in Ohio!

What’s the weirdest fact you know?

Koalas have one of the smallest brain-to-body ratios of any mammals, and their brains are totally smooth! That means they aren’t very smart. If you pick eucalyptus leaves from a tree and put them in front of a koala, they aren’t smart enough to recognize their favorite food.