$403,018.00
EPA has selected the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) for a Brownfields Job Training Grant. Virginia Tech plans to train 35 students and place 25 in environmental jobs. The training program includes 134 hours of instructional training, as detailed in the chart below. Students who complete the training will earn up to two state and four federal certifications. Virginia Tech is targeting dislocated workers, unemployed and undereducated individuals, as well as veterans, individuals with justice-system involvement, and individuals impacted by the decline in the coal industry within the LENOWISCO Planning District. Key partners include Addiction Recovery Care, Dominion Energy, Goodwill Industries of Tennva, Hands and Feet Ministries, InvestSWVA, the LENOWISCO Planning District Commission, Mountain Empire, Southwest Virginia and Virginia Highlands Community College, Mt. Rogers Adult Education, People, Inc., Sun Tribe, the Southwest Virginia (SWVA) Higher Education Center, the SWVA Workforce Development Board, The Nature Conservancy, the Virginia Cooperative Extension, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Energy, the Virginia Talent and Opportunity Partnership, the Virginia Tech Southwest Center, the Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources and Environment, the Virginia Tech College of Science, the Virginia Tech Myers-Lawson School of Construction, and the Virginia Tech School of Plant and Environmental Sciences.
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EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states, Tribal Nations, 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, Tribal Nations, 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 Brownfields Job Training Grants. Additionally, funding support is provided to state and tribal response programs through a separate mechanism.
Brownfields Job Training Grant funds are provided to nonprofit organizations and other eligible entities to recruit and train unemployed and underemployed residents from communities affected by environmental pollution, economic disinvestment, and brownfields and place them in environmental jobs. Since the program was created in 1998, EPA has awarded 430 job training grants totaling over $113.1 million through Brownfield Job Training Programs. With these grants, approximately 23,460 individuals have completed training and over 17,450 individuals have been placed in careers related to land remediation and environmental health and safety. This equates to a cumulative placement rate of approximately 74 percent. The average starting wage for these jobs over the last five years is approximately $23 an hour.