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EPA Awards Grant to Train, Recruit and Place New Orleans Residents into Environmental Jobs

Release Date: 05/12/2014
Contact Information: Joe Hubbard or Jennah Durant at 214-665-2200 or r6press@epa.gov

DALLAS – (May 12, 2014) Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected the Limitless Vistas of New Orleans, La. for an Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT) grant for $200,000. The grant will support local work to recruit, train, and place individuals in jobs that address environmental challenges in the New Orleans area. The grant is part of $3.6 million dollars awarded to 17 other grantees across the U.S.

“Green jobs are fundamental to making our cities more sustainable,” said EPA Regional Administrator Ron Curry. “Investing in training enables residents who live near many of these sites to develop skills and secure jobs in their community. We look forward to working with Limitless Vistas.”

The nonprofit plans to train 50 students and place 38 graduates in environmental jobs. Limitless Vistas is targeting unemployed or underemployed residents of New Orleans’ Gert Town and Central City neighborhoods, with a focus on recruiting disadvantaged youth, ex-offenders, veterans, and low income minorities. Key partners include the New Orleans Workforce Investment Board, Regional Brownfields Commission, New Orleans Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development, New Orleans Office of Coastal and Environmental Affairs, The Corps Network, and a number of community-based organizations and environmental employers.

EPA’s Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training program, which provides environmental and health and safety training, helps graduates develop a broader set of skills that improves their ability to secure short-term contractual work, as well as full-time, employment in the environmental field. Program graduates acquire training and certifications in a variety of areas, such as environmental health and safety, lead and asbestos abatement, landfill management, wastewater treatment, brownfields assessment and cleanup, Superfund cleanup, leaking underground storage tank removal, recycling and emergency response.

Since the EWDJT program’s inception in 1998, EPA has funded 239 job training grants totaling more than $50 million. More than 12,800 individuals have completed training, and of those, more than 9,100 have secured employment in the environmental field.

More information on environmental workforce development and job training grants: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/pilot_grants.htm

More information on EPA’s brownfields Program https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/

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