Environmental Engineering

Engineer from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers inspecting the construction of an emergency levee.

1. Environmental Consultant

Description: Environmental consultants are usually hired to ensure that environmental regulations are being met during the construction of a roadway, factory, or any other structure that is required to meet these regulations. The consultants are usually brought into a project early on so they can help in obtaining licenses that will allow a company to begin construction. They also commonly stay in the project throughout construction. As a consultants, you must have the ability to interpret legislation and direct their clients in following the legislation. You will usually work as a team searching out potential environmental problems and trying to find a solution that will allow a project to continue without disrupting or damaging the environment. Your clients can be private companies as well as the government. In some firms, entry-level jobs may be a field technician job that involves traveling to the site and take samples or collect data.

2. Drinking-Water Quality Control Director

Description: Water quality control director helps ensure that drinking water stays drinkable. This involves constant testing, sifting through data, and ordering measures to correct potential problems before people get ill. In this job, you are expected to know the science, to be able to identify problems before they become serious, and to deal with the public’s concerns and worries about the safety of what comes of their taps at home. The job is found in all level of governments, private water companies, and local health departments. The prospect of this type of career is quite good due to rising concerns about drinking water quality.

3. Wastewater Engineer

Description: A wastewater engineer helps design and supervise the construction of systems to control runoff and sewage in order to minimize the impact of water pollutants. Your potential employer includes a private consulting or construction firm whose clients might be city governments building sewage treatment plants or small developers building a condo apartment near wetlands. This is a job that requires the technical skills of a civil and environmental engineer with the real life problem of protecting aquatic environments. You might work closely with electrical, instrumental, and structural experts in a project. This is a growing field in places undergoing development or changing environmental regulations.

4. Recycling Products Manager or Engineer

Description: Individual recycling process and systems exist in individual industries such as plastic, paper, and glass, to process recyclable materials and to create new products. Some waste collecting and recycling facilities are also starting to install systems to sort, clean, and break down discarded or recycled materials and make them into new products. A recycling products manager or engineer’s job is to oversee these operations and to update and create new mechanical systems for handling recyclable materials. You responsibilities may include keeping records of incoming shipments, supervising staff, and overseeing the maintenance and safety of mechanical systems. As more cities pass laws that mandates recycling, job prospects are very good. Engineers are also in search of new recycling technologies.

5. Hazardous Waste Test Engineer

As a hazardous waste test engineer, your job is to collect and analyze soil or water samples that may contain hazardous waste and to provide information to people who need to know if their health or the public’s safety is in danger. These situations may arise when hazardous waste is improperly disposed of or when there is potential hazardous waste that needed verification. Your employer is likely governmental agencies or private consulting firms that do this type of test sampling.

6. Air Quality Inspector

An air quality inspector ensures that man-made emissions to the atmosphere do not violate provisions of air pollution laws. The inspector can be a government regulator who writes air emission permits and reviews permit applications from business or factories that discharge particulate matter or chemicals into the air. You will make on-site visits to factories, businesses, and sometimes even private homes to examine equipment, records, and industrial chemical to make sure operations are in compliance with pollution laws. This job is highly technical and you will need a working knowledge of chemistry, environmental chemistry, engineering, and the industries. You may need to supervise teams of technicians to collect the information you need during the inspection. Air quality inspector can also be working for private consulting firms.

7. Biotech Remediation Project Scientist

A project scientist working in biotech remediation assesses the damage of a contaminated site and plans the cleanup so that nearby natural resources and ecosystems do not get destroyed and people’s health do not get threatened. Part of your job will be preparing and filing written reports to the state or other regulatory agency, detailing the damage and the plan for cleanup. You might be hired by the government to mitigate petroleum spill damages or a private company who want to redevelop a contaminated site.

8. Environmental Engineering Lawyer

An environmental engineering lawyer requires an expertise in both environmental engineering and law. This dual educational requirement is typically satisfied through an ABET accredited degree in environmental engineering and an ABA accredited law degree. Likewise, this profession requires both licensure in professional environmental engineering and admittance to one bar. Environmental engineering lawyers seek to promote the advancement of technical engineering knowledge in the legal profession and to enhance informed legal analysis of complex environmental matters. You need to integrate knowledge of the underlying science involved in environmental issues and the corresponding technologies with expertise in using the legal system. You will also file suits and try cases just like any other litigation jobs.