Brownfields 1999 Job Training Pilot Fact Sheet
King County-City of Seattle, WA
EPA Brownfields Initiative
EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states.
communities, and other stakeholders to work together to
prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse
brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the
expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be
complicated by the presence or potential presence of a
hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. On
January 11, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into
law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields
Revitalization Act. Under the Brownfields Law, EPA
provides financial assistance to eligible applicants
through four competitive grant programs: assessment
grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and
job training grants. Additionally, funding support is
provided to state and tribal response programs through a
separate mechanism.
Background
EPA has selected King County and the City of Seattle
for a Brownfields Job Training and Development
Demonstration Pilot. King County and the City of Seattle
will manage the Brownfields Job Training Pilot,
Brownfields Assessment Pilot, and Showcase
Community Initiative. The Job Training Pilot will focus
on the Duwamish Industrial Corridor, the most highly
concentrated industrial area in the State of Washington.
The corridor encompasses more than 8,500 acres and
runs through the center of Seattle's federal Enterprise
Community and state-designated Community
Empowerment Zone. Despite a strong regional economy,
distressed neighborhoods in the Duwamish Corridor
suffer from poverty rates as high as 57 percent and
unemployment rates three times higher than the county
average.
The state has identified more than 200 sites with
confirmed contamination in the industrial corridor, and
numerous other sites are suspected to contain hazardous
substances. King County and the City of Seattle are
currently implementing a community-based process to
prioritize brownfields for cleanup and redevelopment.
The county and city will give preference to those cleanup
and redevelopment projects for which the proponent is
willing to consider hiring local residents that graduate
Pilot Snapshot
Date of Announcement: 05/01/1999
Amount: $147,500
Profile: The Pilot will train a minimum of 50
participants as environmental technicians and train 20
of the students in advanced environmental assessment
techniques. Students will be recruited from distressed
neighborhoods in the Duwamish Industrial Corridor,
which runs through the center of Seattle's federal
Enterprise Community and state-designated
Community Empowerment Zone. A
Contacts
For further information, including specific grant
contacts, additional grant information, brownfields
news and events, and publications and links, visit the
EPA Brownfields Web site
(http ://www .epa.gov/brownfields).
EPA Region 10 Brownfields Team
(206)553-7299
EPA Region 10 Brownfields Web site
(http://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/CLEANUP.NSF/
sites/bf)
Grant Recipient: King County,WA
(206) 205-7070
Objectives
King County and the City of Seattle plan to train a
minimum of 50 residents with the EPA grant and ensure
a 65 percent rate of job retention after one year. The
Pilot will target low-income residents and welfare
recipients from distressed neighborhoods in the
Duwamish Industrial Corridor. The Pilot training
program will consist of a 184-hour environmental
technician curriculum, including the use of innovative
assessment and cleanup technologies. Twenty of the
graduates will be provided with an additional 120-hour
advanced environmental assessment curriculum leading
to certification.
The training efforts of King County and the City of
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
EPA500-F-99-101
May 99
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from the Pilot training program.
Seattle will be supported by organizations such as the
Environmental Coalition of South Seattle, three local
community colleges, the Manufacturing Industrial
Council of Seattle, and the King County Labor Council.
Local employer support is strong; four environmental
firms are committed to give priority consideration to
hire graduates.
The information presented in this fact sheet comes from
the grant proposal; EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of
this information. The cooperative agreement for the
grant has not yet been negotiated. Therefore, activities
described in this fact sheet are subject to change.
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
EPA500-F-99-101
May 99
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