EPA Awards $3.5M for Environmental Workforce Development
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is granting $3.5 million to 18 projects across the country as part of its Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT) grant program, providing environmental training to unemployed and economically-disadvantaged local residents.
The programs benefit local residents impacted by brownfield sites in their communities by helping to provide opportunities to secure work and build careers cleaning up these sites. Grantees, who will each receive a $200,000 grant, work in areas historically affected by unemployment, blight, economic disinvestment and solid and hazardous waste sites. The EWDJT program provides communities the flexibility to deliver training meeting specific labor market demands in fields such as: brownfields assessment and cleanup, waste treatment and storm-water management, electronics recycling, green remediation and emergency response.
“EWDJT grants transform lives by providing individuals the opportunity to gain meaningful long-term employment and a livable wage in the growing environmental field,” says Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management. “Individuals completing training have often overcome a variety of barriers to employment.”
The EWDJT program is intended to not only help revitalize the land, but also transform the lives of those living on it,’” he says. “We see this investment as a great way to more directly involve affected communities in their own revitalization.”
EWDJT grants are awarded to a broad range of communities with multiple indicators of need, including communities affected by natural disasters or the closure of manufacturing facilities, Economic Development Administration “Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership