Thursday, August 14, 2026
Senior Editor, Infrastructure
Dana has covered municipal water systems and public works financing for eleven years, previously for a regional daily in Ohio. She holds a certificate in water resource policy.
With federal funding flowing and compliance deadlines tightening, utilities and private contractors are replacing lead and galvanized water service lines at a pace the trade has never seen. Here is what is actually happening under America’s front lawns — and what it means for the plumbers doing the work.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 11 min read
No digging up the driveway, they say — and sometimes that is true. A field guide to pipe bursting, CIPP lining, and the honest questions that decide whether trenchless saves your yard or just reprices the same job.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 11 min read
It is the plumbing component nobody thinks about until a contamination event makes the news. A plain-language guide to backflow preventers, cross-connections, annual testing, and why every home and business should know what is protecting their water.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 10 min read
Too high and your fixtures leak, your pipes strain, and your bills climb. Too low and every shower disappoints. A plain-language guide to the pressure regulator every home should have, and how to tell when it is failing.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 10 min read
From outhouses to spa suites, the United States built more wet rooms per person than almost any society in history — and the plumbing trade, real estate market, and water grid are still catching up to what that abundance means.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 18 min read
Two point two million miles of drinking water pipe carry the country through an ordinary Tuesday. The people who keep it whole rarely get to explain what that takes.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 18 min read
From Roman aqueducts to Tokyo’s seismic pipe networks to a hand pump in a Tanzanian village, the work of moving clean water in and waste out is universal — and nothing about the way it is done is the same.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 22 min read
Place, challenge and outcome on a retrofit that treated pipe routing as a design decision.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 10 min read
Roughly 2.2 million miles of buried water main carry the nation’s drinking water, and a large share of it was laid before the interstate highway system. A plain-language guide to what is underground, how fast it is failing, and what it will cost to renew.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 16 min read
Clean water in, waste out. The two simplest ideas in sanitation are also the most lethal disease interventions in human history — and the people who build and maintain them have outsaved every physician who ever lived. A plain-language case for the trade that civilization forgot to thank.
By Dana Whitfield, Senior Editor, Infrastructure · · 15 min read
