Environmental Engineers

Environmental Engineers. New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. , In the mid-1800s, the Richmond family built a grist mill on this small channel of the New River. The river's regular high flow guaranteed a dependable water source for grinding grain. As subsistence farmers like the Richmonds settled this area, they utilized the abundant natural resources for their survival, often altering the natural environment in the process., Today, we can see that beavers have built dams along this same channel where the grist mill once stood, changing a once swift stream into a stagnant wetland. Beavers, like people, engineer the environment around them. They cut trees and build dams. Those dams flood other trees and create wetland habitats. Wetlands, in turn, provide habitat for aquatic plants, insects, crawdads, fish, and raccoons., When is it appropriate to alter the environment around us? What is different about the way we alter our environment compared to the ways that beavers alter the environment?