Civic Works to receive $300,000 EPA brownfields training grant (MD)
PHILADELPHIA (July 13, 2011)
-- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
today announced that Civic Works in Baltimore will receive a
$300,000 Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grant
to help train low-income residents for environmental
jobs.
Civic Works, a non-profit AmeriCorps program,
will use the funding to train 144 students for entry-level
environmental jobs helping to clean up abandoned and contaminated
properties in Baltimore.
"EPA’s brownfields training grants
demonstrate how creating jobs and protecting the environment can go
hand-in-hand,” said Shawn M. Garvin, administrator for
EPA’s mid-Atlantic region. “This funding will help
ensure that brownfields cleanup projects in Baltimore have the
trained workforce needed to revitalize contaminated properties and
provide new job opportunities for community members."
This is the fifth EPA brownfields training grant
awarded to Civic Works since 2000. Four other grants for $200,000
each were used to train more than 200 people and place more than
150 graduates in jobs.
Since 1998, EPA has awarded more than $35
million under the Environmental Workforce Development and Job
Training Program. As of May 2011, more than 6,683 individuals have
been trained through the program, and more than 4,400 have been
placed in full-time employment in the environmental field with an
average starting hourly wage of $14.65. The development of this
green workforce will allow the trainees to develop skills that will
make them competitive in the construction and redevelopment
fields.
The EPA grant in Baltimore is one of 21 national
grants announced this week. EPA’s brownfields program
encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000
abandoned and contaminated waste sites. For more information on
environmental workforce development and job training grants,
visit: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/job.htm
.