If you’re wondering what happens over at SUNY-ESF besides tie-dyeing on the Quad and worshipping an oversized acorn, wonder no more. Some of us are studying ecological engineering, and you are welcome to join in.

Ecological engineering is designing ecosystems for the mutual benefit of people and the environment. It is the one place in my engineering studies that allows for gray area. The answers are qualitative and supported with calculations rather than cold, hard numbers and factors of safety for wiggle room. There are ecological engineering courses open to all majors without prerequisites — it’s advising week, check them out under the ‘ERE’ prefix.

A classic example is using constructed, or man-made, wetlands for treating wastewater. After the wastewater has been given a preliminary treatment to remove solids, or poop — I’m trying to catch up to Danny Fersh in the number of times I mention poop in my column — the plants in the wetland take up nitrogen and phosphorus in the water. Clean water is released without wreaking havoc on the nearest waterway.

Nitrogen and phosphorus are necessary for plant growth, but if too much is released into a waterway, algae can grow uncontrollably and choke all the aquatic life. Conventional wastewater treatment removes nitrogen and phosphorus in a more mechanized and energy-intensive way.

Treatment wetlands are always constructed wetlands. By law, natural wetlands cannot be used for treating water. Law also dictates that if a community fills in a natural wetland to develop on, a man-made wetland must be built elsewhere.

Because ecological engineering is about taking advantage of functions that nature already performs, the designs produced are frequently less reliant on expensive infrastructure that requires heavy maintenance. This makes these solutions highly appropriate for developing nations that cannot devote the resources to conventional facilities, like a wastewater treatment plant.

Other ecological engineering designs include rain gardens, which capture stormwater to take the pressure off of sewer systems that are already overloaded. For instance, Syracuse uses rain gardens to keep sewage from going into Onondaga Lake. Using plants or fungi to take up heavy metals in soil or wastewater and hydroponic farming (growing plants without soil) are also ecological engineering applications.

I love that this is about harnessing ecosystem services that already exist and directing them for a purpose. Environmental conservation certainly has its place, but ecological engineering feels like taking the plastic slip covers off your grandmother’s furniture and building a fort in the living room. It’s something magic, a little irreverent and a marked improvement on the couches and chairs that were there before.

There is an emphasis on including all of the design stakeholders — engineers, government, community members and the environment. Because of the nature of ecological engineering, people who traditionally don’t think of themselves as engineers are involved in these designs. Ecologists and biologists are obvious contributors, but architects, city planners, industrial designers, resource managers, policy makers, farmers and government officials at the local, state and federal level get involved, too.

The State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry is hosting the American Ecological Engineering Society’s annual conference this coming June with workshops to get certified in ecological design. This is the first international conference ever hosted by ESF; as a leader in the field, this is kind of a big deal. The call for abstracts goes out Tuesday. For information, visit ESF’s website.

It’s going to be a party, you should come.

Leanna Mulvihill is a senior forest engineering major and environmental writing and rhetoric minor. Her column appears every Tuesday. She can be reached at lpmulvih@syr.edu.

Published on November 7, 2011 at 12:00 pm