EPA grants career center $200K

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded Springfield’s Missouri Career Center a $200,000 grant.

The funding is designated for the local career center’s recruitment, training and placement of unemployed and underemployed in full-time environmental jobs, according to a news release.

The grant through the EPA’s Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training program is specifically targeted toward residents of 16 Springfield neighborhoods: Bingham, Doling Park, downtown, Fairfield Acres/Bissett, Fassnight, Grant Beach, Heart of the Westside, Midtown, Robberson, Rountree/Walnut, Tom Watkins, Weller, West Central, Westside and Woodland Heights.

The Missouri Career Center expects to enroll at least 56 trainees in the program and graduate 35 for such jobs as site cleanup, ecological restoration, and lead and asbestos abatement at brownfields remediation projects. The center will train applicants in Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, as well as a number of environmental certifications.

“These training classes are the keys to full-time green jobs that pay well because they are in demand,” EPA Regional Administrator Mark Hague said in the release. “For communities like Springfield, this helps build a workforce that can reclaim and revitalize environmentally challenged properties to benefit the community.”

Springfield is one of 18 communities across the nation receiving $3.5 million in grants in the latest round of funding. Since 1998, the EPA program has distributed over 256 grants exceeding $54 million. More than 10,600 people have been placed in full-time jobs with an average hourly starting wage of $14.34, according to the release.