13 States Get Brownfields Job Training Grants
Thirteen communities in 10 states will share more than $2.5 million in job training grants geared toward cleaning up contaminated properties and turning them into productive community assets.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under its Brownfields Initiative, is awarding grants of up to $200,000 each to non-profit organizations, local governments, a university, and a tribe. The grants will teach environmental assessment and cleanup job skills to individuals living in low-income areas near brownfields sites in Alabama, California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
"Through brownfields job training grants, EPA is literally putting both people and property back to work," said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.
Since 1998, EPA has awarded more than $23 million in brownfields job training funds. Approximately 4,000 people have completed training programs, with more than 2,500 obtaining employment in the environmental field, earning an average wage of $13.93 per hour. The program is designed to ensure that the economic benefits derived from brownfields redevelopment remain in the affected communities.
The brownfields program encourages redevelopment of an estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites.
For more information on the grant recipients, visit http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/job.htm.