EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, communities, and other stakeholders to work together to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. The Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2002, as amended by the Brownfields Utilization, Investment and Local Development Act of 2018, was passed to help states and communities around the country clean up and revitalize brownfield sites. Under this law, EPA provides financial assistance to eligible applicants through five competitive grant programs: Multipurpose Grants, Assessment Grants, Revolving Loan Fund Grants, Cleanup Grants, and Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grants. Additionally, funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs through a separate mechanism.
Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grant funds are provided to nonprofit organizations and other eligible entities to recruit and train unemployed and underemployed residents from solid and hazardous waste-impacted communities and place them in environmental jobs. To date, EPA has funded 305 job training grants totaling over $63 million through the Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training program. As of October 2019, more than 18,300 individuals have completed training, and of those, almost 13,700 have obtained employment in the environmental field, an average starting wage of over $14 an hour. This equates to a cumulative placement rate of approximately 75% since the program was created in 1998.
$200,000.00
EPA has selected the Earth Conservancy for an Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training grant. The Earth Conservancy plans to train 50 students and place at least 33 graduates in environmental jobs. The training program includes 229 hours of instruction in 40-hour HAZWOPER, introduction to brownfields, surveying field assistant, basic land surveying techniques, AutoCAD-Level I, GIS for resource conservation, environmental sampling, 10-hour OSHA construction safety, and first aid/CPR/AED Training. Courses will be taught by instructors from Pennsylvania State University, and the program will culminate in a closed career fair featuring local-area companies. Participants who complete the training will earn three federal certifications. The Earth Conservancy is targeting unemployed and underemployed veterans of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre/Hazleton metropolitan area. Key partners include the Penn State Wilkes-Barre Continuing Education Office, the Luzerne/Schuylkill Workforce Investment Board, the Lackawanna County Workforce Development Board, the Northern Tier Regional Planning and Development Commission, the Pocono Counties Workforce Development Board, the Outreach Center for Community Resources, the Commission on Economic Opportunity, the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, the Veterans Resource Coalition of Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, and Geo-Science Engineering & Testing LLC.