Environmental Engineer (Water)

Fantastic challenges. Amazing opportunities.

GKN Aerospace is reimagining air travel: going further, faster and greener! Fuelled by great people whose expertise and creativity sets the standards in our industry, we’re inspired by the opportunities to innovate and break boundaries. We’re proud to play a part in protecting the world’s democracies. And we’re committed to putting sustainability at the centre of everything we do, opening up and protecting our planet. With over 16,000 employees across 32 manufacturing sites in 12 countries we serve over 90% of the world’s aircraft and engine manufacturers and achieved sales of £3.6bn in 2025. There are no limits to where you can take your career.

Job Summary

Provide technical environmental engineering support for water, wastewater, stormwater, spill-prevention, and water-resource compliance at an aerospace and defense manufacturing site producing acrylic and glass aircraft transparency products.

Protect receiving waters, sewer systems, groundwater, employees, neighbors, and operational continuity by implementing compliant and practical controls for process wastewater, industrial stormwater, cooling/rinse systems, chemical storage, secondary containment, washdown, wastewater pretreatment, sampling, and reporting.

Translate federal Clean Water Act/NPDES concepts, California Water Board requirements, Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board expectations, local City of Garden Grove environmental compliance interfaces, and customer/audit expectations into reliable daily execution for acrylic casting/forming, solvent bonding, coatings, glass processing, finishing, maintenance, and utilities.

Job Responsibilities

1. Stormwater Program Management

• Maintain and improve the site SWPPP, site maps, drainage maps, pollutant source assessments, BMPs, inspection forms, monitoring schedules, and SMARTS records.

• Conduct or coordinate stormwater inspections, qualifying storm event sampling, pollutant source tracing, benchmark/NAL evaluations, corrective actions, and annual reporting.

• Evaluate outdoor operations, raw material areas, waste staging, tanks, loading docks, roof drains, dust collectors, pallets, scrap, maintenance yards, and chemical storage for exposure to stormwater.

• Lead corrective actions for stormwater exceedances, including source identification, BMP upgrades, employee training, housekeeping improvements, structural controls, and treatment options.

1. Wastewater, Pretreatment, and Sewer Interface

• Evaluate process wastewater streams from acrylic casting/forming, glass grinding/cutting, polishing, rinsing, coating support, equipment cleaning, cooling, utilities, and maintenance activities.

• Support wastewater discharge authorizations, local sewer authority reviews, pretreatment requirements, sampling, flow estimates, source-control programs, and records.

• Monitor and troubleshoot pollutant parameters such as pH, TSS, COD/BOD, oil and grease, metals, solvents, coolants, suspended solids, and process-specific constituents.

• Partner with facilities and operations to maintain treatment systems, sumps, interceptors, neutralization equipment, filters, holding tanks, pumps, valves, and discharge controls.

1. Water/Spill Control Engineering for Acrylic and Glass Manufacturing

• Assess water-related risks associated with MMA/monomer areas, solvent bonding, coatings, tanks, totes, drums, autoclaves, ovens, dust collectors, saws, grinders, CNC equipment, and polishing lines.

• Design or recommend secondary containment, drain protection, isolation valves, berms, covers, diversion, treatment, spill kits, storage layouts, and storm-resistant shelters.

• Support Management of Change and capital projects to ensure new equipment, chemicals, production lines, tank systems, and utilities address water quality and wastewater impacts before startup.

• Develop practical procedures for washdown, equipment cleaning, spill cleanup, wastewater transfer, sampling, and safe maintenance of water-handling equipment.

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1. Regulatory Compliance and Agency Readiness

• Support compliance with Clean Water Act/NPDES concepts, California Industrial General Permit requirements, Santa Ana RWQCB permits or WDR/NPDES applicability, City of Garden Grove environmental reporting channels, CUPA/CERS interfaces, and SPCC where applicable.

• Prepare regulatory reports, permit applications, permit modifications, technical memoranda, inspection responses, corrective-action packages, and management-review updates.

• Support regulator inspections and information requests by preparing records, walking systems, explaining control strategies, and tracking commitments through closure.

• Maintain a compliance calendar for sampling, inspections, reports, permit renewals, monitoring equipment calibration, contractor service events, and corrective-action due dates.

1. Aerospace & Defense Customer and Audit Linkage

• Ensure water compliance controls support continuity for civil and military transparency production; avoid shutdowns, agency actions, or releases that could disrupt customer delivery commitments.

• Maintain records and objective evidence that can withstand AS9100/NADCAP/customer, insurance, corporate, and regulatory reviews.

• Coordinate with quality and manufacturing engineering when water systems, drainage, wash processes, or treatment changes could affect product cleanliness, optical quality, FOD/contamination control, or special processes.

• Protect controlled or customer-sensitive areas during sampling, inspections, contractor work, and corrective actions.

1. Data, Training, and Continuous Improvement

• Analyze sampling and monitoring data, identify trends, develop visual dashboards, and recommend source reduction or treatment improvements.

• Train operators, maintenance, contractors, and supervisors on stormwater BMPs, spill prevention, wastewater controls, drain protection, sampling awareness, and prohibited discharges.

• Lead water-reduction and pollution-prevention projects such as closed-loop rinse/cooling systems, filtration, chemical substitution, dry cleanup, reuse, and improved housekeeping.

• Manage environmental vendors and labs for sampling, waste/liquid handling, treatment system maintenance, calibration, and emergency water-related response support.

Job Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, environmental science, water resources, or related technical discipline.

• 3+ years of environmental engineering or environmental compliance experience with water, wastewater, stormwater, pretreatment, NPDES/WDR, SWPPP, sampling, or industrial facility compliance.

• Working knowledge of Clean Water Act concepts, NPDES stormwater or wastewater permitting, California Industrial General Permit expectations, SWPPP implementation, BMPs, sampling protocols, and corrective-action reporting.

• Experience evaluating industrial processes, wastewater streams, stormwater pollutant sources, spill pathways, secondary containment, and drain/sewer/stormwater systems.

• Ability to read P&IDs, site drainage maps, utility drawings, SDSs, permits, lab reports, technical specifications, and regulatory correspondence.

• Strong data analysis, technical writing, root-cause analysis, project management, vendor management, and cross-functional communication skills.

• Ability to work safely in chemical manufacturing areas, outdoor stormwater areas, treatment system areas, maintenance environments, and production spaces.

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office; ability to use environmental databases, compliance calendars, sampling logs, corrective-action systems, or GIS/drawing tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in aerospace, defense, acrylic/PMMA/MMA processing, glass fabrication, coatings, solvent bonding, chemical manufacturing, precision machining, or regulated high-mix manufacturing.

• Engineer-in-Training (EIT), Professional Engineer (PE), QISP, CPESC, CESSWI, CHMM, or equivalent environmental/water credential.

• Experience with California SMARTS, QISP support, Industrial General Permit sampling/reporting, Exceedance Response Actions, and stormwater BMP design.

• Experience with industrial wastewater pretreatment systems, pH neutralization, oil/water separation, filtration, solids removal, sump/tank systems, and sewer discharge monitoring.

• Familiarity with Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board programs, City of Garden Grove environmental compliance interfaces, Orange County CUPA/CERS, South Coast AQMD coordination, DTSC hazardous waste interfaces, and EPA NPDES concepts.

• Experience preparing permit applications, technical reports, agency responses, SWPPPs, SPCC plans, water balance studies, pollution-prevention plans, or capital project justifications.

• Experience supporting AS9100/NADCAP/customer audits, defense-prime expectations, ITAR-adjacent or controlled manufacturing environments, or disciplined configuration/change-control cultures.

• Bilingual English/Spanish capability or demonstrated ability to train and influence a multilingual manufacturing workforce.

Compensation Data

Salary Range: $96,466.00 - $120,583.00

We’ll offer you fantastic challenges and amazing opportunities. This is your chance to be part of an organisation that has proven itself to be at the cutting edge of our industry; and is committed to pushing the boundaries even further. And with some of the best training on offer in the industry, who knows how far you can go?

A Great Place to work needs a Great Way of Working

Everyone is welcome to apply to GKN. We believe that we can only achieve our ambitions through a coming together of diverse minds who enjoy collaborating in an inspirational environment. Through our commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging and by living our five powerful principles we’ve created a culture where everyone feels welcome to contribute. It’s a culture that won us ‘The Best Workplace Culture Award’. By embracing and celebrating what makes us unique we encourage everyone to bring their full self to work.

We’re also committed to providing an accessible recruitment process, so if you require reasonable adjustments at any stage during our recruitment process please get in touch and let us know.

We are the place where human dreams, plus human endeavour, shape the future of aerospace innovation and technology. ​

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