Highlighting Heroes: Water/Wastewater Facilities Manager for Kingsport Public Works
Niki Ensor – Water/Wastewater Facilities Manager
Niki Ensor leads her team to provide clean and healthy drinking water for Kingsport residents – an essential service for any community.
Niki is the Water/Wastewater Facilities Manager for the City of Kingsport. Hired in 1998 as an operator in the water treatment plant, Niki eventually moved up to her current position. Her main responsibility is to make sure residents of Kingsport have the water they need to go about their daily lives.
“We are able to provide this service so that our community can live and thrive and build, and then they can have a great quality of life within our beautiful city,” she explained.
Her current project, the Raw Water Project, is nearing completion. The project replaces the current infrastructure and equipment that has reached the end of their usable life. The new infrastructure will change how water pumps in the plant for treatment. Using gravity, water will flow through a new tunnel and be pumped into the plant. The new infrastructure is more efficient and will provide Kingsport with clean drinking water for the next 100 years.
“What this does is provide us with more reliability, replace outdated infrastructures, and make water treatment more secure,” said Niki. “Now pumping operations will happen on-site at the water treatment plant, reducing the risk for single points of failure. It’s really a tremendous project.”
Niki enjoys being involved in projects that go above and beyond the minimum requirements of water departments across the state. She and her team strive to better the quality of life for everyone in Kingsport. The water/wastewater team takes great pride in their department. They often receive recognitions for their efforts.
Recently, the water department won the Distribution Operational Excellence Award and the EPA Safe Drinking Water Partnership Award for the eighth year. The wastewater treatment plant has received several National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) Peak Performance awards for their exceptional compliance record.
Niki Ensor is a Kingsport Hero because of the hard work and dedication she puts into providing the city with the clean and safe drinking water it needs to stay healthy and thrive.