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EPA Announces $3.6 Million in Environmental Job Training Grants

Release Date: 05/12/2014
Contact Information: Bonnie Smith, smith.bonnie@epa.gov, 215-814-5543

PHILADELPHIA (May 12, 2014) –The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today the selection of 18 grantees nationwide for the award of approximately $3.6 million through the Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training program. Civic Works, a non-profit AmeriCorps program in Baltimore, is among the recipients for EPA funding, and will use its $200,000 grant to train 72 Baltimore residents for careers in environmental cleanup work.

“This funding will expand the workforce needed in Baltimore to reuse and revitalize contaminated properties,” said EPA mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin. “The environmental cleanups will help improve the health and economic strength of the City’s communities, while creating new jobs for local residents.”

Including today’s grant, EPA has awarded $1.4 million to Civic Works since 2000 to invest in the futures of the program’s graduates.

Nationwide, graduates of EPA’s Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT) program develop a comprehensive set of skills to secure employment in many areas of the environmental field. The goal of this program is to fill environmental jobs with local residents as much as possible and to provide them with careers that make a visible impact cleaning up their neighborhoods while creating a skilled workforce.

Since the EWDJT program’s inception in 1998, the 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/