Environmental Workforce Development
and Job Training Success Story
Cypress Mandela Training Center
Oakland, California
HIGHLIGHTS
Since serving as one of EPA's
original Brownfields Job Training
"Pilot" grants in 1998, CMTC has
gone on to receive an additional,
two-year EPA Brownfields Job
Training grant every time it has
applied. CMTC has also received
funding under the Agency's new
and expanded Environmental
Workforce Development and Job
Training program.
Core training focuses on
hazardous waste remediation,
including asbestos and mold
removal and supplemented with
masonry, plumbing, carpentry and
surveying, as well as solar and
other renewable energies and life-
skills. Students graduate with eight
different certifications.
Through a collaboration with EPA
and a local contractor, CMTC is
testing an innovative, safe and
non-intrusive remediation method
with the potential to revolutionize
the way lead contamination in soil
is addressed.
Poverty and unemployment have long been issues for residents of
West Oakland, California, with rates doubling national averages. In
1989, after an earthquake collapsed the Cypress Mandela Freeway,
community activists expressed their desire that cleanup and rebuilding
jobs created through the disaster should be filled by area residents. The
problem was that few who lived in the area had sufficient training and
no area training programs existed.
In response, with West Oakland's predominantly low-income and
minority, unemployed residents in mind, neighborhood representatives
applied for and received funding from the Federal Highway
Administration (FHA) to train residents with the skills needed to clean
up earthquake debris on the freeway. A large, vacant building in the
city's warehouse district became the Cypress Mandela Training Center
(CMTC)—and 90 percent of the first round of trainees were hired for
freeway cleanup. This success led to additional funding from FHA, the
U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the State of California, and other
public- and private-
sector sources;
and solidified
CMTC's presence
in the community.
Word of mouth
began to spread
and waiting lists
began to form for
training classes.
In 1998, CMTC
applied for and
received an EPA
Brownfields Job
Training Pilot for
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$200,000 to prepare local residents not only to
clean up the contaminated properties that had
plagued their neighborhoods, but for lasting
careers in environmental remediation. An
experimental "pilot" grant at the time, this EPA
funding allowed CMTC to further expand its
environmental training curriculum and change
the lives of disadvantaged residents. From
initial courses in lead and hazardous materials
cleanup, CMTC now offers comprehensive
coursework in environmental remediation that
includes modern, "green" cleanup techniques
as well as life-skills training leveraged through
non-ERA funding.
"We have high standards in this program, both
for our students and what we offer," explains
Art Shanks, who has been with CMTC since
its inception and is now the Executive Director.
"Classes begin at 7:00 a.m. sharp and are
no-nonsense. They learn masonry, iron works,
plumbing, carpentry, surveying, construction
materials handling, blueprint reading, and
CAD (also known as Computer Aided Design
or Drafting) skills; lead, asbestos and mold
removal; confined space cleanup; and first aid/
CPR. We are also a green-approved training
center, teaching students about solar and other
renewable energies, materials recycling, and
energy-saving insulation techniques." Students
graduate with no less than eight different
certifications. "We also give them the life-skills
training they may not already have," Shanks
elaborates. "We teach them how to manage their
time, parenting skills, how to overcome chemical
dependencies, and avoiding toxic relationships.
They learn anger management and how to
budget their finances. But our high standards
make students raise the bar for themselves and
ensure their success after graduation."
Offering three 16-week training cycles per year,
CMTC now has as many as 400 applicants
on their waiting list—understandable given
the program's near 90 percent placement rate
after graduation and local word-of-mouth,
"[The program gives] you what you need to create
a good career... it's like you have a Harvard
degree in construction and cleanup. Without the
program I'd be working some odd job now, I have
no clue where I'd be."
—CMTC Graduate
Charles Jones
which is CMTC's main source of recruits. "We
had a diversion program that we offered for the
Justice Department," says Art Shanks. "We went
in and spoke to a group of around forty first-time
drug offenders, 18-to-22 year olds. We explained
that through this agreement, if they went through
our 16-week program, they'd have their records
expunged. Only six or seven accepted the offer
initially. But one of those who chose not to enter
the training saw one of our graduates on the street
later in his surveying uniform, making $22 an hour.
The kid asked him, 'How can I get a job like that?'
and the other kid told him, 'You were at the same
meeting I was, Mr. Shanks came in and offered you
the program and you turned it down.' But that kid
ended up re-applying and eventually got into our
program and graduated. So we're taking kids that
are problematic in our community and turning them
into responsible citizens—we are changing the
future of this city."
Since proving its value—as well as the value of
the EPA Environmental Workforce Development
and Job Training Program (formerly known as
Brownfields Environmental Job Training Program),
in 1998—CMTC has been the recipient of EPA Job
Training grants (each spanning two years) every
time it has applied. Through the years, CMTC
has forged close relationships with local business
organizations to help graduates find jobs, including
the Alameda County Building and Construction
Trades Council, and the Associated General
Contractors and Minority Contractors Associations.
More recently, the Center partnered with a local
community college to offer trainees classes
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in carpentry
and modern
weatherization
techniques.
In 2011, CMTC
entered into a
collaboration with
EPA and a local
environmental
contractor,
SFS Chemical
Safety, Inc., to
test a method of
soil-based lead
cleanup with
the potential to
revolutionize how
such cleanup
is performed.
Oakland's
South Prescott
neighborhood—
built on the site of a former landfill used for
disposal of debris from the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake, with lead levels averaging twice
federal safety guidelines—will serve as the
perfect proving ground. This new method uses
dry, ground up fish bones, which are regarded
as waste product by fish processing plants.
Workers trained by CMTC dampen the crushed
bones, spread the resulting paste over selected
yards, and work the mixture into the soil with
a rototiller. The process allows neighborhood
trees and plants to remain undisturbed. Over the
next several weeks, a chemical reaction takes
place that bonds lead contamination with bone
particles, rendering the lead harmless to humans.
At the time of this article, CMTC had only applied
the paste on three South Prescott properties,
and the method's effectiveness was still being
determined. But ultimately, this EPA-funded, $4
million test project could potentially replace the
method of digging up and disposing of hundreds
of thousands of tons of contaminated soil—an
expensive, time consuming and difficult process
that has been used for decades.
For CMTC's nearly 2,400 graduates, the
program's value is already evident. "It was what
I needed to get back on track," he explains. "The
CMTC staff care about the individual that they're
training. They give you what you need to create
a good career. With those certifications, it's
like you have a Harvard degree in construction
and cleanup. I found work within a week after
graduating. Without the program I'd be working
some odd job now, I have no clue where I'd be. It's
made a big difference in my life and I've already
recommended five or six friends for the training."
Brownfields Success Story
Cypress Mandela Training Center
Oakland, CA
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
EPA560-R-11-012
October 2011
www. epa.gov/brownfields/
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