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EPA funding to help train area residents for environmental jobs

Release Date: 03/06/2008
Contact Information: Terri White, [email protected] (215) 814-5523

PHILADELPHIA (March 6, 2008) -- An Allegheny County social services agency has won funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide job training to area residents.

EPA announced a $197,000 brownfields job training grant today to the Heritage Health Foundation Inc., in Braddock, Pa. The Heritage Health Foundation will use the funding to train 60 students in skills related to health, safety and inspection of hazardous sites so they can get employment associated with the assessment and cleanup of brownfields sites and redevelopment.

"The value of this brownfields grant is that it will help provide training and environmental career opportunities to residents living in the Monogahela Valley area," said Donald S. Welsh, administrator for EPA's mid-Atlantic Region. "It's important that the economic benefits derived from brownfields redevelopment remain in the affected communities."

Participants will be recruited from among low-income, unemployed and underemployed residents living in brownfields-impacted neighborhoods of southwest Pennsylvania's Monongahela Valley. This is one of 13 brownfields job training grants nationwide announced today. Overall, the grants are valued at more than $2.5 million.

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.
For further information, including specific grant contacts, additional grant information, brownfields news and events and publications, visit the EPA Brownfields web site at www.epa.gov/brownfields.