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EPA Announces $161,000 Brownfields Job Training Grant to West Virginia University

Release Date: 12/22/2005
Contact Information: David Sternberg, (215) 814-5548

PHILADELPHIA - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced the selection of West Virginia University Water Research Institute, National Research Center for Coal and Energy, to receive a Brownfields job training grant. The $161,000 grant will be used to train 80 people from the Northern West Virginia communities of Fairmont, Clarkesburg, Parkersburg and Wheeling in skills to remediate brownfield properties.

The 106 hour course will include Hazardous Site Worker, OSHA Construction Safety, Disaster Site Worker and Environmental Site Assessment training as well as gas well leak control, fist aid and CPR.

The grant was one of 12 grants announced nationally today which teach environmental cleanup skills to people living in low income areas near brownfield sites. Since !998, EPA has awarded $17.3 million in brownfields job training grants. More than 2,600 people have completed the training and over 1,600 have obtained jobs in the environmental field, earning an average wage of $13 per hour.

The Brownfields Job Training Program gives people in brownfields-affected communities
skills to obtain employment in the environmental field, so that people in the local community benefit from brownfields redevelopment.

EPA’s Brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. Since the beginning of the Brownfields program, EPA has awarded more than 850 assessment grants totaling approximately $220 million, more than 200 revolving loan fund grants totaling more than $183 million. More than 230 cleanup grants totaling approximately $42 million have also been awarded. EPA’s Brownfields assistance has leveraged more than $7.2 billion in private investment and attracted more than 34,000 jobs.