Process Control Specialist; Water

Job Description
- Process Control Specialist (Water) (260000NE)

Position Grade: 210G

Department:
Water Division

Job Type: Full-Time (Permanent)

Examination Number: EX1790

Location:
Water Division
- St. Louis, MO

The SCADA Process Control Specialist – Drinking Water Systems is responsible for the administration, maintenance, and optimization of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), process control, and supporting IT/OT infrastructure for drinking water treatment, storage, and distribution facilities. This role supports 24/7 mission-critical operations and serves as a technical authority for control systems, industrial networking, and cybersecurity within a dedicated SCADA network environment.

The position works closely with water treatment operations, engineering, and management to ensure regulatory compliance, system reliability, and safe delivery of potable water.
Participation in on-call support and emergency response activities is required.

• Configure, maintain, and troubleshoot SCADA systems supporting drinking water treatment plants, booster stations, reservoirs, and distribution assets.
• Develop, modify, and maintain PLC and RTU logic to support treatment processes including coagulation, filtration, disinfection, chemical feed, pumping, and storage operations.
• Design and maintain HMI graphics, alarm management strategies, and trending to support operator situational awareness and regulatory monitoring.
• Monitor system health, diagnose operational or control system issues, and coordinate corrective actions to minimize service disruptions.
• Support commissioning, testing, and acceptance of new or upgraded treatment facilities and control systems.

• Collaborate with operations and engineering staff to evaluate treatment processes and implement automation improvements that enhance reliability, water quality, and energy efficiency.
• Perform control strategy validation, factory and site acceptance testing (FAT/SAT), and field verification.
• Maintain accurate documentation including control narratives, P&IDs, I/O lists, alarm rationalization records, and system configurations.

• Administer and support the dedicated SCADA/OT network, including servers, virtual environments, workstations, network switches, firewalls, radios, and communications infrastructure.
• Manage Windows- and Linux-based SCADA servers and clients, including system hardening, patching, backups, and recovery procedures.
• Configure and maintain industrial and IT networking technologies, including VLANs, routing, VPNs, firewalls, and remote access solutions.
• Support system integrations with historians, laboratory systems, asset management platforms, reporting tools, and limited enterprise interfaces while maintaining network segmentation.

• Implement and maintain OT cybersecurity controls consistent with industry standards and guidance (e.g., NIST, ISA/IEC 62443, AWWA cybersecurity guidance).
• Support compliance with federal and state drinking water regulations, including requirements related to monitoring, reporting, and system integrity.
• Manage user access controls, account reviews, logging, backup validation, and vulnerability mitigation within the SCADA environment.
• Participate in incident response, system recovery, and business continuity planning for SCADA and supporting IT systems.

• Provide technical support and guidance to water treatment operators and maintenance staff.
• Participate in an on-call rotation and…