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Although Indian engineering led to some disasters,..

Indeed..
The Ohio mound builders disaster may have been disease through contact with europeans but it may also have been overpopulation, drought, flood or other unknown factors..
At any rate, a large civilization disappeared... and only tribes remained..
In the southwest, a large metropolitan civilization existed..
It's believed now that they practiced human sacrifice, and that they were finally "terminated" by those surrounding tribes..

The Gulf Coast tribes were destroyed by disease from the spanish as were the Aztec and others.. ( of course, they returned the favor, it's believed the Indians gave the Spanish syphillis in exchange.. )
There were some "cities" along the gulf, (esp. Texas and Louisiana) but they had pretty much disappeared by the mid to late 1600's..

The plains tribes had large "metropolitan" areas along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers..
They were decimated by contact with european settlers and no resistance to transferred diseases.. especially smallpox and plague..

There is some truth and some BS in the author's article..
Truth is the apparent fact of various signs of metropolitan civilization in North America as well as Mexico Central America and South America..
Truth is the massive agricultural projects that took place.. As to their success, we're not so sure about that..
BS is the supposed "stewardship" of the land..
Slash & Burn is not stewardship.. sorry..
Planned pastureland for Bison? Not likely..
Bison knock stuff down. Especially trees..
Any expansion of the prairies was probably a conjunction of Bison using young trees as "back scratchers" and local tribes harvesting wood for various purposes..
Prairies don't have a lot of trees, and I doubt the native americans were that selective in their own cutting..

All in all, the article is OK in the sense that it might cause interest in the subject and encourage some people to do some study on American Indian history prior to the arrival of european colonization movement..