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U.S. EPA Awards Brownfields Grants in California: Includes San Francisco and Oakland

Release Date: 9/17/2002
Contact Information: Mark Merchant 415-947-4297

     SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week the selection of four supplemental grants in California totaling $275,000 under the Brownfields Job Training and Development Demonstration Pilots.

     The grants for Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Long Beach, are among the 13 announced  nationwide in the second round of supplemental Brownfields job training pilot grants to be awarded. The first round was in May.
 
     "This funding will allow these communities impacted by Brownfields to use the supplemental funding to continue their efforts to train residents in procedures for the handling and removal of hazardous substances," said Wayne Nastri, the EPA’s regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest.

     San Francisco’s Young Community Developers, Inc. will receive $75,000 in supplemental funds and plans to train 18 residents. The pilot met 100 percent of the goals established in the previous grant.  All 18 graduates from the last class were employed within 10 days of training completion and received an hourly wage of $17 per hour with benefits. The pilot leveraged over $180,00 through partnerships.

     The Oakland Private Industry Council plans to use its $50,000 supplemental grant to train an additional 45 citizens with the goal of placing 60 percent into environmental jobs. The pilot met enrollment and placement goals which consisted of seven 13-week training cycles including a goal to train 120 citizens and place 80 percent of the trainees. It resulted in the enrollment of 150 citizens and the placement of 101 with a 75 percent job retention rate of those placed into jobs. Partnerships were developed with community organizations and funding or in-kind support was leveraged from the Cypress Madela Program.
 
     The goals of the pilots are to facilitate cleanup of Brownfields sites contaminated with hazardous substances and prepare trainees for future employment in the environmental field. Brownfields are abandoned, idled or under-used industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination.
 
     Since 1993, the EPA Brownfields program has provided over $200 million in assessment, revolving loan fund cleanup and job training grants, resulting in over $3.2 billion in public and private investments leveraged and over 14,000 cleanup and redevelopment jobs generated.

More information on these grants is available at: www.epa.gov/swerosps/bf/html-doc/jt0802.htm