{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/environmental-scientists-and-specialists-including-health/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health", "soc_code": "19-2041", "category": "Science", "us_employment": 89250, "median_annual_wage": 82220 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 50, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 10, "embodiment": 12, "liability_shield": 7, "trust_premium": 8, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "A Phase I ESA records review, an NPDES permit renewal narrative, a Title V emissions inventory, and the boilerplate of a monitoring report are all now first-draafted by machine, but chain-of-custody sampling, well gauging, wetland delineation, and defending a risk-based closure to a state case manager are not — roughly half the billable hours sit on each side, which is why this lands at 10 and not 6 or 14.", "embodiment": "Field days mean walking transects, purging monitoring wells, running a PID at a vapor intrusion survey, and doing 40-hour HAZWOPER-covered work on active industrial sites — real uncontrolled environments — but a typical week is still more office than boots, so 12 rather than the 16+ of a remediation field technician who never leaves the site.", "liability_shield": "There is no single 'environmental scientist' licence: some states let you sign a Phase I under ASTM E1527 Environmental Professional criteria with a degree plus five years, some require a Professional Geologist stamp on subsurface work, and CHMM or REM are resume items rather than legal gatekeeping — so the 7 reflects credential paths that exist but are state-patchy and often satisfied by experience alone.", "trust_premium": "Repeat retention comes from the regulator and the client's counsel knowing your name and trusting your judgment calls on a closure request, but most deliverables are firm-branded reports read by a permitting agency that cares about the data tables, not who assembled them — that mix of named credibility and interchangeable output is an 8.", "judgment_accountability": "Deciding whether a benzene plume has a complete exposure pathway to a receptor, whether to recommend no further action versus active remediation, and what to disclose in an ESA are calls made on incomplete site data with liability and property-transaction money riding on them — high discretion, but bounded by state screening levels, ASTM protocols, and a PE or PG who stamps the remedial design, which keeps it at 13 rather than 17." }, "rationale": "The modal environmental scientist splits time between field sampling and site inspections and a large pile of screen work — permit applications, Phase I ESA desktop reviews, compliance reports, environmental impact narratives, and data QA — and that document tier is exactly what language models now draft at usable quality. What survives is going to the site: collecting soil, water, air, and soil-gas samples, judging whether a contaminated plume actually threatens a receptor, and standing behind that call in front of a state regulator. Licensure is patchy (Professional Geologist in some states, CHMM, or a PE stamp on remediation designs), so the liability shield is real but thinner than in engineering or medicine.", "outlook": "Headcount holds roughly flat but the mix shifts hard: fewer junior report writers, steady demand for licensed field practitioners who can defend a risk determination to an agency.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Expansion of state Professional Geologist / Environmental Professional licensure to the ~30 states that lack it, plus tightening of the ASTM E1527 / EPA All Appropriate Inquiries 'Environmental Professional' definition to require a named licensee to personally sign Phase I ESAs and site closure opinions (EPA revised AAI to ASTM E1527-21 in 2022; further revision cycles are the watch point). A PE-stamp requirement on remediation system design and vapor-intrusion mitigation in more state programs does the same.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Licensed Site Professional-style programs modeled on Massachusetts MCP and New Jersey's Licensed Site Remediation Professional Act, where a private licensee — not the agency — issues the cleanup closure determination and bears personal audit and revocation exposure. Adoption by additional states, or extension of the LSRP model to brownfields programs elsewhere, is a concrete, observable event.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier job: if permit-application drafting, Phase I desktop reviews, and boilerplate NEPA narrative are absorbed, the residual day is receptor-pathway determination, defensible data QA sign-off with chain-of-custody attestation, and regulator negotiation — work whose evidentiary standing depends on a named human. Also watch state agencies adding AI-disclosure/attestation rules for submitted reports (as some permitting agencies have begun requiring for consultant filings).", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Litigation and enforcement pressure that names the environmental professional personally — PFAS and vapor-intrusion cases where the closure opinion is the disputed document, plus professional-liability insurers (e.g., E&O carriers for A/E/C firms) writing exclusions for conclusions not independently verified by a named licensee. That underwriting condition, already appearing in A/E policies for AI-generated deliverables, forces the consequential call back onto a person.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Sampling defensibility standards that require a qualified human physically present for chain-of-custody and field QC — e.g., state programs or EPA SW-846 guidance declining to accept drone- or autonomous-sensor-collected soil-gas and groundwater samples as primary evidence in enforcement contexts.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no plausible route: the buyer is a developer, lender, or PRP purchasing regulatory acceptance at lowest cost, not a human touch. Even with strong licensure the ceiling is the Massachusetts/New Jersey LSRP pattern — a thin signature layer over increasingly automated document production, which raises liability without necessarily preserving headcount." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 81920, "wage": 69400 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 80480, "wage": 71130 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 84290, "wage": 71360 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 84610, "wage": 73230 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 76890, "wage": 76530 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 77270, "wage": 76480 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 80730, "wage": 78980 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 84930, "wage": 80060 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 89250, "wage": 82220 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 8.9, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "foresters", "title": "Foresters", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 60, "median_wage": 76400, "overlap": 64, "skills_to_close": [ "Operation and Control", "Equipment Selection", "Management of Material Resources", "Operations Monitoring" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }