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Zender Environmental Health and Research Group selected to receive a $300,000 EPA Job Training Grant funds to train workers for a brighter, “greener” future.

Release Date: 07/20/2011
Contact Information: Susan Morales, 206-553-7299, morales.susan@epa.gov Mark MacIntyre, 206-553-7302, macintyre.mark@epa.gov

(Seattle – July 20, 2011) The Zender Environmental Health and Research Group of Anchorage, Alaska, has been selected to receive a $300,000 in Brownfields Workforce Development and Job Training Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Zender will use the funding to hold job and certification training for Native Alaskans in 40 of Alaska’s most remote and rural villages.

Brownfields was originally focused on training workers to transform rundown, largely urban, commercial eyesores into revitalized, productive properties. Recently the program has expanded to provide workers valuable job training to assess, manage and clean up a broader universe of contaminated sites in a variety of venues.

“Brownfields job training provides workers the tools they need to launch a career or get a better job,” said Dennis McLerran EPA Regional Administrator. “It’s a program we’re proud of because every day, the Brownfields program puts local workers on the job improving the places they call home.”

Zender plans to train and place over 34 participants in environmental jobs, and track graduates for 18 months.

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.

EPA established the Brownfields Job Training Program to help residents take advantage of jobs created by the assessment, as well as to spur cleanup and sustainable reuse of Brownfields sites and to ensure that the economic benefits derived from Brownfields redevelopment remain in the affected communities.

For more on brownfields job training grants: https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/job.htm
For more about Brownfields work in Region 10 please visit: https://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/CLEANUP.NSF/sites/bf