News Releases from Region 06
Limitless Vistas, Inc., of New Orleans Receives EPA Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grant
Program helps transform lives and land across the country
DALLAS – (May 7, 2018) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected Limitless Vistas, Inc., of New Orleans, La., as one of 17 organizations to receive funding to operate environmental job training programs for local residents. The organization’s grant of $200,000 is part of about $3.3 million given nationwide through EPA’s Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT) Program. These grants help prepare people for green jobs that reduce environmental contamination and provide more sustainable futures for the communities most affected by solid and hazardous waste contamination.
“Through these Brownfields job training programs, we’re investing in getting Americans back to work and improving local economies and the environment,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “Graduates will acquire the skill set necessary to gain full-time employment in the environmental field and help revitalize their communities.”
“Environmental job training benefits program graduates as well as their communities,” said Regional Administrator Anne Idsal. “EPA is proud to partner with Limitless Vistas to help these training participants change their lives and improve their neighborhoods.”
Limitless Vistas plans to use the grant to train 60 students and place at least 42 graduates in environmental jobs. The training program includes instruction in fields such as hazardous waste management and shipping, underground storage tank awareness, solid waste management and remediation, and soil and groundwater sampling and fieldwork. Program graduates will earn one state and five federal certifications. Limitless Vistas will target the program to unemployed or underemployed, low income, minority, veteran, and ex-offender residents of the Treme, Lafitte, and 7th Ward neighborhoods in New Orleans.
Today’s selectees are:
- Alaska Forum, Inc., Anchorage, AK
- City of Pittsburg, Pittsburg, CA
- City of Springfield, Springfield, MO
- City of Tacoma, Tacoma, WA
- Civic Works, Inc., Baltimore, MD
- Essex County Division of Training and Employment, East Orange, NJ
- Full Employment Council, Inc., Kansas City, MO
- Groundwork Rhode Island, Pawtucket, RI
- Hunters Point Family, San Francisco, CA
- King County, Seattle, WA
- Limitless Vistas, Inc., New Orleans, LA
- Los Angeles Conservation Corps, Los Angeles, CA
- St. Nicks Alliance, Brooklyn, NY
- Sustainable South Bronx, Bronx, NY
- Training to Work an Industry Niche, Charlotte, NC
- West End Neighborhood House, Inc., Wilmington, DE
- Workforce, Inc. dba RecycleForce, Indianapolis, IN
EPA continues to support the EWDJT program to help put people to work by building a skilled workforce across the country. The program awards competitive grants to nonprofit organizations and other eligible entities to recruit, train and place unemployed and underemployed individuals. Individuals completing the training have often overcome a variety of barriers to employment. Many are from low-income neighborhoods. The training programs also serve dislocated workers who have lost their jobs as a result of manufacturing plant closures, minorities, tribal members, transitioning veterans, ex-offenders and other individuals who may have faced barriers to employment.
Since 1998, when the EWDJT grant program started, more than 288 grants have been awarded. Over 17,100 individuals have completed training, and of those, more than 12,500 individuals have been placed in full-time employment earning an average starting wage of over $14 an hour. This equates to a cumulative job placement rate of 73 percent of graduates.
There are an estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites in America. When brownfields are addressed, nearby property values within a one-mile radius can increase 5-15.2 percent according to an independent study.
For more information on EWDJT grantees, including past EWDJT grantees, please visit: https://cfpub.epa.gov/bf_factsheets/
For more information on EPA’s EWDJT program, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/types-brownfields-grant-funding
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