Feature
Job trainees become part of the solution
A nearly $200,000 job training grant will put underemployed women to work cleaning up brownfields sites in the Portland and Multnomah County areas.
Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. (OTI) in Portland was awarded the EPA grant that will be used to train 140 women in 12 training cycles--placing at least 91 in environmental jobs--and then to track the graduates for two years. Connie Ashbrook, OTI executive director, says women who have already completed the program see they have an opportunity to clean up a contaminated site in their community and become involved in its redevelopment. And that’s exciting to them.
“It’s an empowerment thing to be a part of (environmental cleanup) in such a big way,” she says.
Ashbrook calls the training program a “grassroots effort” that will educate ordinary people about brownfields and allow them to become a part of the solution. And the training program will show that women are interested in environmental cleanup, typically a male-dominated field.
“They’re going to change the face of the industry, that’s for sure,” Ashbrook says.
More than $22 million has been awarded to training organizations throughout the nation since the brownfields program inception in 1998, according to OTI. The training grants are funded up to $200,000 over two years. Government entities or eligible nonprofit organizations can apply. All candidates must serve a community that’s receiving or has received brownfields assessment, revolving loan fund or cleanup grant funding. Calls for the 2008 grants should be out around July or August, says Susan Morales, an EPA brownfields project manager.
The brownfields job training grants serve several purposes. The grants foster workforce development through environmental training. They put people to work, recruiting trainees from socio-economically disadvantaged communities. (Graduates typically make from $9 to $25 an hour, with the average individual who’s never been previously trained making $13 an hour, according to Morales.) They provide quality worker trainings. And, perhaps most importantly, these grants are training people who will benefit firsthand from their work, as they are affected by brownfields in their communities.
Among the recipients of these grants in Region 10 is the city of Tacoma, which was awarded a nearly $142,000 grant last year. That grant will train 60 people in the environmental field, with an emphasis on underground storage remediation, says Peter Guzman, project manager for the city of Tacoma.
Completed in November, the first class trained 18 people, and the city is currently on its second training of 20 people. One more class, which has a waiting list, will be held in the spring. The Tacoma class is free to Pierce County residents residing in an area impacted by a brownfield. The 12-week training involves 184 hours of basic environmental training, including courses in HAZWOPER, blood borne pathogens and spill response. Graduates can apply credits toward an associate in applied science degree.
Of the 18 people who graduated from the first class, seven have found employment and seven more are completing an associate’s degree at Clover Park Technical College, Guzman says. Guzman also expects to sustain the training program in the future with non-EPA funds, and the technical college has agreed to continue offering the program after this spring.
Ashbrook is hoping to have similar success in the OTI program. The most recent grant builds upon a prior brownfields job-training project that trained 45 women. The organization will run six training sessions this year and again in 2008. The seven-week training will include 140 hours of course work, including OHSA safety, hazardous waste worker and confined space entry training. Participants also will attend OTI’s state-certified Trades and Apprenticeship Career program, a pre-apprenticeship program for women exploring careers in the building trades. OTI then will help connect graduates to employers who provide jobs in the demolition, site prep, remediation and redevelopment of brownfields, so at least 65 percent of graduates become employed.
“This grant, along with our ongoing generous support from other governmental organizations and members of the construction industry, will mean that we can continue to bring more women out of poverty and prepare them for a rewarding career in construction, including brownfield redevelopment and environmental remediation,” Ashbrook says.
Back to Top
Problem Solver
Grants lead to answers in Alaskan villages
Scott Anderson says he has one goal for the Native Village of Port Heiden’s brownfields program: peace of mind.
And that means removing any uncertainty from the dozen or so contaminated sites in Port Heiden, a small village on the Alaska Peninsula where commercial fishing is the main industry. Port Heiden is surrounded by contamination marking the village’s past; however, no one really knows its extent or if it’s affecting groundwater, says Anderson, the tribal environmental director for the Native Council of Port Heiden. He wants some clear answers for the 90 or so residents.
Taking steps to gain this peace of mind, Port Heiden has successfully started a tribal response program. The Native Village of Port Heiden in 2005 received a $55,562 grant from the State and Tribal Response Program (STRP). It received more than $100,000 in 2006. The STRP grant is awarded by the EPA to states and tribes looking to develop their capacity to inventory, assess and manage the information needed for the redevelopment of brownfield sites.
Several tribal organizations in Alaska have been awarded STRP grants to help build their internal program capacity. The grants are enhancing existing programs, and many tribes are at the forefront of establishing these programs to build capacity. Activities funded under these grants include locating sites, developing mapping capabilities, conducting assessments, establishing new outreach programs and creating inventories of brownfield sites within a community or region, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Quality.
In Port Heiden, the grant money also is building upon its environmental program. Steps Anderson has taken include:
- Creation of a work position for an in-house GIS technician
- Creation of a half-time office position
- Creation of a public record
- Research of previous work done by the U.S. Air Force, state and other federal agencies, and environmental consultants
- Attending GIS trainings
- Hiring a GIS consultant to come to Port Heiden and help the GIS technician complete final work
Port Heiden is among the many villages in Alaska with a legacy of contamination left behind when a military base there was abandoned by the U.S. Air Force. The base, established during World War II, brought 5,000 people to Port Heiden. Although the people have left, abandoned fuel drums, former dumping sites and other concerns remain.
Also of concern to Anderson is the “old village,” an area outside of town people once called home until soil erosion drove them northward. It has old dumping sites and abandoned 55-gallon drums that once held oil and fuel for the village. Many people in Port Heiden believe a higher-than-average cancer rate among the residents is related to the old village, Anderson says. And one particular open dumping site has him anxious too.
With an inventory in place and a better understanding of brownfields, Anderson now would like to do a Phase I assessment on either the old village site or the open dumpsite by the end of the year. That would require a professional contractor’s help; however, in the future, Anderson hopes he and his staff can do the assessments themselves.
The grant has given the village a good foundation for strengthening its environmental program this past year, Anderson says. And Port Heiden is moving forward, making strides toward eventually clean up and redevelopment of these sites. “I believe we’re right where we want to be,” he says.
Back to Top
Groundwork
Solicit support, partnerships to build your small program
Let’s face it, most brownfield programs are small units. Many consist of one, two or three staff members. Still, they are managing grant money, not to mention those contaminated sites in their communities or states.
One of the pitfalls of being a small unit is the breadth of knowledge staff members must have, says Sharon Kophs, Washington Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development program manager. In a field that has exploded into something much bigger in recent years, that enormous amount of information can be daunting, even for the experts.
“There’s a whole industry developing around brownfields and sometimes we can’t keep up,” Kophs admits.
So how do you keep up and keep your small unit running efficiently? Experts in EPA Region 10 offer these tips:
- Soliciting support from other groups or facilities is vital when you’re a small office, says John Carnahan, brownfield coordinator for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). That can mean partnering with other government agencies, environmental contractors, nonprofit organizations or tribes. In Alaska, tribes receiving State and Tribal Response Program grants have an opportunity to benefit from the state’s efforts and work to align on priority issues.
- Stress education and outreach in your community. Get the word out about your job and the brownfields program. Among those tools can be public meetings, an e-newsletter and a Web site. The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC), a coalition of 64 tribes and first nations in Alaska and the Yukon Territory of Canada, has operated a tribal response program since 2005. To ensure communities within the 330,000-square-mile watershed are kept informed of brownfields issues, YRITWC devotes one page in its newsletter to brownfields and has developed a Web page. The page has been especially helpful in informing people about trainings, says Charlene Stern, brownfields program manager for the watershed council.
- Capitalize on each other’s expertise in your office, Carnahan says. “Try to make the tasks fit the expertise that already exists,” he says.
- Grow your sphere of influence in those rural communities. Last year, the YRITWC worked with 20 tribes in the largely rural Yukon River basin to complete a multi-community brownfield inventory. Before visiting each of the participating communities, the YRITWC held a training for 20 tribal environmental technicians. The training was designed to build local and regional capacity, Stern says. Partnerships formed during the training helped the program inventory 165 potential sites. This year, the YRITWC plans to collaborate with another 11 tribes in the watershed, Stern says.
- And don’t bite off more than you can chew. It’s an old adage, but one that holds true, says Carnahan.
Sonja Benson, DEC brownfields program specialist, also reminds people to be patient. It helps to have a long-term view for your unit, something that can be hard to do as you go about your daily work, she admits.
“If you’re trying to move a mountain, start with a few little rocks,” Benson says. “And enjoy the small successes along the way.”
Back to Top
