News Releases from Region 02

EPA Provides $200,000 for Green Job Training in Glens Falls, New York

(New York, N.Y. – May 12, 2016) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the City of Glens Falls, New York a $200,000 workforce development and job training grant to provide green job training. Glens Falls will use the funds to give unemployed or under-employed residents of Warren and Washington counties the skills they need to enter the environmental job market.

“This EPA funding will create opportunities for people to get jobs that protect the environment and promote sustainable economic development in the Glens Falls area,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. “The training provided through this grant ensures that people’s health is protected while doing this important work.”

Glens Falls will use EPA funding to train 75 people. The core training program includes 170 hours of instruction, including: 40-hour Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response training, which is required to work on assessing and cleaning up contaminated sites; environmental sampling techniques; lead renovation; and asbestos and mold remediation, among other topics.

Participants who complete the core training will earn eight state or federal certifications. Glens Falls will work with the following organizations to identify program participants and to place students in green jobs: Washington County Veterans Service Agency, Warren-Hamilton Counties Community Action Agency, Warren County Employment and Training Administration, and the NAACP Glens Falls Chapter.

Since the establishment of the EPA’s Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training grant program in 1998, more than 256 grants have been awarded, exceeding $54 million. Approximately 14,700 individuals have completed training, and of those, more than 10,600 individuals have been placed in full-time employment. This equates to a cumulative job placement rate of nearly 72 percent of graduates.

For more information on EPA’s EWDJT program, please visit:

https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/types-brownfields-grant-funding

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