Montana Technological University is taking an early approach to the environmental engineering workforce challenge by introducing students to the profession before they reach college. The university's Environmental Engineering Department hosted its inaugural Summer Environmental Engineering Camp earlier this summer. An all-expenses-paid residential program that brought together 23 high school students from Montana, Colorado, California, Virginia, Washington, and Idaho for hands-on work involving water treatment, air pollution, remediation, mining, and environmental monitoring. The program comes as engineering firms, utilities, and environmental organizations face growing pressure to develop technical talent rather than relying exclusively on the existing workforce.
Students Designed Real Treatment Systems, Not Just Toured Facilities
Montana Tech built the camp around field and laboratory work rather than classroom instruction alone. Students toured the Montana Resources open-pit mine and a wastewater treatment lagoon, explored restoration work associated with the Butte Superfund site by bicycle, and used research-grade drones, including Wingtra fixed-wing mapping flights and a DJI Matrice 300, for environmental data collection. The week culminated in an engineering challenge called "Emergency at Granite Pass," in which six student teams developed either a portable air-treatment system capable of reducing smoke and particulate matter or a water-treatment cartridge designed to remove copper and reduce turbidity, moving through investigation, prototyping, testing, optimization, documentation, and presentation before presenting their designs to judges. That type of exposure matters because environmental engineers increasingly work across infrastructure systems rather than within a narrow environmental function, a profession that spans water and wastewater treatment, air-quality controls, remediation, pollution prevention, and environmental compliance.
Environmental Engineering Openings Are Growing Twice as Fast as the Average Job
Federal workforce projections reinforce the need for that pipeline. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of environmental engineers will increase 6% between 2025 and 2035, twice the projected 3% growth rate for all U.S. occupations, with approximately 2,300 environmental engineering openings expected each year, including positions created as workers retire or leave the occupation. Median annual pay reached $107,110 in May 2025, according to BLS. Engineering firms broadly are already seeing the staffing constraints those projections describe: the ACEC Research Institute reported this summer that 84% of engineering firms have open positions they are struggling to fill, even as the industry's median project backlog held at approximately 11 months, and some firms have become more selective about the projects they accept as a result.
Federal Water Workforce Funding Is Moving in Parallel
Workforce concerns are particularly visible in the water sector, where funding pressure and workforce gaps are converging on utilities at the same time. On August 19, the EPA announced $10.8 million in grant funding for water-sector workforce development, with eligible programs including internships, apprenticeships, education programs for elementary through college students, and regional workforce collaborations; the agency cited retirements, aging infrastructure, and changing technology among the reasons additional workforce investment is needed. Montana Tech's program addresses that same pipeline much earlier than most, and its environmental engineering department describes a consistently strong career-outcome rate among its typically small graduating classes, the kind of early-exposure model that other technical industries are also leaning on to build talent pipelines from the ground up. The university is already planning another environmental engineering camp next summer. For a sector increasingly focused on how to recruit engineers, operators, and skilled technical workers, programs like Montana Tech's highlight another part of the workforce equation: introducing students to the work years before employers are competing to hire them.
