“Balancing Energy Needs and Environmental Protection”
Alumni Q&A with Environmental Consultant Eva Heetebrij

Eva Heetebrij joined Au Sable’s Boardman River Study during the summer of 2020. She graduated from Calvin University in April 2022 with an environmental science degree and currently works at Merjent, a Minneapolis-based environmental consulting firm focused on energy clients. She shares about what grounds her in the tensions and opportunities of her work.

How did you get into environmental science?

Ever since I was a kid I really cared about the environment. I was recently reading my diary from when I was eight years old. I had written a note to my future self: “Have I fixed the climate yet?”

What was your time like at Au Sable?

I was there during the summer of 2020. There weren’t classes, but I was a researcher. We had two weeks of solid fieldwork going out to the Boardman River collecting sediment samples and bringing them back to the lab and processing them. For the rest of the summer, we were counting out all the little bugs and macroinvertebrates we could find and sorting them into genus and species.

How did Au Sable affect your trajectory going forward?

Doing this project made me realize I might not want to do research as a full-time job, because it was intense. I did like it a lot, but I wanted to go into a job where I am looking at a lot of different things.

What is your current job like?

Environmental consulting is more of a corporate level job. We’re trying to find a prudent middle ground between saving the environment, which is incredibly important, and providing energy infrastructure, which is necessary for our society to run. That is admittedly a point of view that I had failed to look at before. When you’re young, you think, “We have to be out on the streets protesting gas lines at all costs because they’re ruining everything.” A little part of me is still fighting to do that. But to be realistic, unfortunately, a lot of people still depend on gas utilities. The industry is shifting towards more sustainable energy sources, but the upkeep of our current infrastructure is necessary, even if it’s not what a lot of people would like in the ecological sphere.

What helps you to stay in this middle ground with integrity?

I’ve gotten pretty close to my coworkers and a few of them are Christians. We have candid conversations grappling with being this middle man that both sides are mad at. On one side, the very staunch ecological protectionists are saying, “How dare you work with these energy companies who are ruining our environment and you’re okaying all this stuff to keep on going?”

On the other side, a lot of the energy clients might fight you on the permits they have to have to abide by to keep their projects going.

One of the things we look at is wetland delineation. Before companies start construction, we go into a site and map all of the wetlands. We do threatened endangered species studies, such as bat migration or roosting habitats. We might say, “You can’t cut down this tree because that is an Indiana bat habitat.” Or, “I found a Karner blue butterfly host species in this area and you cannot cut it all down.” That messes with companies’ plans, and they get frustrated at us sometimes.

Outside of my job, I still go to church and think about all these issues with a Christian lens. I’m still on that journey of figuring out what feels right and what God wants me to do. My view at this point is that energy infrastructure is inevitable. It will help a lot of people. So we might as well make it as environmentally friendly as we can.

What is your job rhythm?

Environmental consulting looks extremely different day to day. It depends on the season. During the winter, it’s a lot of data, report writing, and getting permits for different clients. From late spring to right before the snow, we’re doing a lot of fieldwork. We go out to different sites with ArcGIS [a mapping software] on our phones. Depending on what kind of construction is planned, we do different surveys.

I work from home [in Grand Rapids]. My company is based in Minneapolis, but they have staff in different states. I’ve gone all over the lower peninsula and used a lot of the tools I’ve learned in classes, from plant taxonomy, to geology, to soils, to animal identification.

I recently got a stormwater operator license. During construction projects, I go out to a site once a week and look at all of their erosion control plans to make sure no sediment is washing into waterways and wetlands. After the construction is wrapped up, companies have to restore the site. We still have to go out and make sure their seed hasn’t washed away, or their erosion control blanket is still in place. It’s having eyes on a lot of construction projects and making sure they’re being restored properly.

What spiritual practices help you to face hard environmental issues?

I became a member of a church in my area. They have a lot of environmentally-based sermons and a native garden in their front area. That church grounds me a lot.

Personal projects also keep me grounded. I convinced my parents to convert part of their lawn into prairie habitat. I collected a bunch of seeds for them when I was out in the field and helped them put it all in the ground. I like getting my hands dirty and doing hard work.

Sometimes it can weigh pretty heavy on your heart, seeing things and thinking, “Man, I wish all this wasn’t necessary in order for people to have heat in their houses.” I’m still working through my thoughts with environmental issues.

What advice would you offer to Au Sable students?

You have to think about what you are willing to compromise on and what you are not. A lot of people who lean more utilitarian end up in the energy industry. If you want to make change, there could be a great fit in government-based jobs dealing with more staunch oversight. For example, if we are dealing with a client who isn’t ascribing to what they agreed to in their permits, then we get EGLE [Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy] involved. It can be very expensive if a company doesn’t do what they agreed to do.

You also have to consider whether you are more of a grassroots versus an overhead environmental body kind of person. There are a ton of skills throughout the entire scope of environmental work that all connects and would translate pretty well.

For students just starting to think about what they want to go into, it’s a bummer that this is true, but connections really are everything. Have a good rapport with your professors, do good work as much as you can so that people will know you as somebody who has integrity, works hard, and has opinions about different things. Don’t feel like you immediately have to go to grad school because that’s what everybody else is doing or, conversely, that you have to go into a job because you need to make money. Do a lot of introspection to see what feels right for you. Explore your options.