Brownfields 2000 Job Training Pilot Fact Sheet
Turtle Mountain Community College, Be/court, ND
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 the Turtle Mountain Community
College for a Brownfields Job Training and
Development Demonstration Pilot. The Turtle Mountain
Community College's assessment pilot partner is the
Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. The Job
Training Pilot will focus on the 15,000 enrolled Tribal
members residing in Rolette County, which is the Turtle
Mountain Reservation's resident county and is located in
north-central North Dakota. Tribal unemployment on the
reservation is 57 percent. The Tribe and county applied
for USDA designation as a Rural Enterprise Community
in 1998. Although unsuccessful, the application process
resulted in creation of a 10-year strategic plan for the
area and designation as a Champion Community. The
U.S. Department of Commerce has classified the area as
an Underutilized Business Zone.
The Tribe's Brownfields Assessment Pilot is targeting
the abandoned San Haven facility, a former State mental
rehabilitation hospital bought by the Tribe in 1992. The
Tribe is planning to assess the property for contaminants
and redevelop the site into a tourism office and natural
history park. The Tribe is in the process of leveraging
funds from several sources to cleanup and redevelop the
site, which would stimulate the local economy and gain
back the 200 jobs lost when the facility was closed.
Pilot Snapshot
Date of Announcement: 05/01/2000
Amount: $200,000
Profile: The Pilot will train low-income or
very-low-income participants as environmental
technicians and provide continuing career support for
three years to graduates. Students will be recruited
from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, who
are actively pursuing cleanup and redevelopment of
reservation properties to alleviate the Tribe's 57
percent unemployment rate.
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 8 Brownfields Team
(303)312-7074
EPA Region 8 Brownfields Web site
(http://www.epa.gov/region8/brownfields)
Grant Recipient: Turtle Mountain Community
College, Belcourt, ND
(701)477-0470
Objectives
The Turtle Mountain Community College plans to train
low-income or very-low-income Tribal participants,
achieve a 100 percent placement rate, and support
career placement of graduates for three years after the
training is completed. The Pilot training program will
consist of one year of prerequisite courses required by
the North Central College Accreditation Standards for
certificate programs, followed by one year of
environmental technician training, including OSHA
40-hour health and safety, lead and asbestos abatement,
hazardous materials handling, and training in the use of
innovative assessment and cleanup technologies.
The Turtle Mountain Community College's training
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20450
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
EPA500-F-01-00-182
May 00
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These sources include a $350,000 Imminent Threat
Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), $400,000 from an Indian
Community Development Block Grant, and
redevelopment planning funds from U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services. In addition to the San
Haven property, Tribal landfills, vacant buildings, and
unregulated open garbage pits present risks of hazardous
material contamination. There are no other job training
programs for hazardous materials handling in the area.
The Job Training Pilot would enable tribal members to
gain livable wage employment in environmentally
related jobs.
efforts will be supported by organizations such as the
Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, North
Dakota Job Service, Tribal Work Experience Program,
Turtle Mountain New Jobs Program, U.S. Department
of Agriculture, HUD, and Tribal Job Training
Partnership Act Program. The Tribal Employee Rights
Ordinance (TERO) requires environmental contractors
to hire local individuals. The Tribe and Roulette county
are working together to reapply for a federal Enterprise
Community/Empowerment Zone designation.
Activities
Activities planned as part of this Pilot include:
• Conducting outreach to recruit residents from the
distressed North Central and South Troy
neighborhoods;
• Conducting environmental technician training,
including courses in the use of innovative
assessment and cleanup technologies; and
• Supporting career placement of students for one
year after the job training is completed.
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-01-00-182
May 00
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