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Kansas City, Mo., Metropolitan Energy Center Selected to Receive $300,000 Green Jobs Grant

Release Date: 07/28/2011
Contact Information: David Bryan, (913) 551-7433, [email protected]; Belinda Young, (913) 551-7463, [email protected]

Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., July 28, 2011) - EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks and Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Sly James today recognized the Metropolitan Energy Center (MEC) for being selected to receive a $300,000 Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grant from EPA.

MEC, a workforce development organization, is one of 21 grantees to receive a portion of the $6.2 million awarded nationally by EPA for workforce development and job training grants.

MEC will use the grant to train job-seekers and give them the tools needed to manage, assess and clean up brownfield sites, which are former industrial or commercial properties where future use is otherwise affected by environmental contamination. The grant will assist in creating jobs while simultaneously refreshing contaminated sites within our communities.

MEC plans to train 52 students, place 40 graduates, and then track graduates for a year after job placement. The training program will consist of two 83-hour training cycles of core and supplemental training courses, and then either a 174-hour environmental remediation track or a 190-hour environmental assessor/inspector track. Core courses will include 40-hour Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response training, underground storage leak prevention awareness, solid waste management, innovative/alternative treatment technologies, and mold awareness.

The program will recruit students from high unemployment and underemployment areas who live in or near brownfield communities in the urban core of Kansas City, Mo., and western Independence, Mo. MEC will work with its partners, environmental companies, local community-based organizations and government agencies to place graduates in environmental jobs following the completion of the program.

Brownfields are real properties, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.