In this episode of Talking Under Water, the hosts break down recent news happening in the water industry. First, they covers the impacts of Hurricane Melissa, which made historic landfall in Jamaica on October 28 as a Category 5 hurricane before moving through Cuba and the Bahamas, leaving widespread damage and power outages across the Caribbean. Then, they dive into the Trump administration’s decision to pause more than $11 billion in funding for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects amid the ongoing federal government shutdown. Finally, they details the blockbuster $63 billion all-stock merger between American Water and Essential Utilities—set to create one of the largest regulated water and wastewater providers in the U.S.

• What to know about Hurricane Melissa
• Trump administration pauses $11B in Army Corps water projects amid budget standoff
• Army Corps of Engineers Pausing $11B in Projects, White House Official Says
• How the government shutdown affects water and wastewater utilities
• NJ Governor proposes revisions to data center reporting bill to include water use study
• American Water and Essential Utilities announce merger to form $40B water and wastewater utility

• Cold open and intro | 0:00
• Episode summary | 01:17
• Hurricane Melissa impacts across the Caribbean | 01:33
• Transition to next story |03:39
• Pause in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project funding | 03:50
• New Jersey governor revises data center reporting bill | 07:07
• American Water and Essential Utilities announce $63B merger | 08:01
• Housekeeping and announcements | 11:04

• WEFTEC coverage
• WaterWorld subscriptions
• StormCon call for papers

Talking Under Water is the premier podcast for the water industry, including municipal water and wastewater, residential water treatment, storm water management and erosion control. It is produced in coordination between Wastewater Digest (WWD), WaterWorld and Storm Water Solutions (SWS). The podcast covers topics under the One Water movement including the municipal and industrial water and wastewater, residential, stormwater and erosion control markets. Talking Under Water highlights news, trends, new technologies, industry discussions and interviews with experts across the municipal water industry. New episodes of the podcast are released every other week. Logo Images: Anatoly Tiplyashin / Romolo Tavani / stock.adobe.com.  

Contact the Talking Under Water podcast editors by emailing talkingunderwater@endeavorb2b.com engaging with them on X @TUWpodcast. Join the conversation by commenting or using the hashtag #talkingunderwaterpod on social media. 

Editor's note: The episode summary and timestamps were written with the assistance of AI.