Oil Spill
Fish hatchery plans moving forward
Pensacola News Journal
As development at Community Maritime Park has made frequent
headlines in the past year, plans to construct an $18 million fish
hatchery next door have quietly moved ahead.
http://www.pnj.com/story/news/2015/05/26/fish-hatchery-plans-moving-forward/27961171/
Regional
Corps considers deepening Mississippi River for bigger ships
The Associated Press
May 26, 2015 at 8:07 AM
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is once again weighing the costs and
benefits of a potential $300 million effort to deepen the lower Mississippi
River by as much as 5 feet.
http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2015/05/corps_considers_deepening_miss.html#incart_most_shared-environment
National
Climate rule would bring power sector's carbon to historic low
The Hill
The Obama administration's climate rule for the power sector would bring
that industry's carbon dioxide output to its lowest level in decades.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/243136-climate-rule-would-bring-power-sectors-carbon-to-historic-low
Court rejects Kansas appeal in EPA air pollution case
The Hill
A federal court has rejected Kansas' challenge of the Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA) disapproval of an air pollution plan from the
state.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/243137-court-rejects-kansas-appeal-in-epa-air-pollution-case
EPA Grapples With Competing Rationales for Setting Renewable Fuel
Requirements
Bloomberg
The Environmental Protection Agency is grappling with how much ethanol the
market can absorb as petroleum refiners and renewable fuels producers offer
competing rationales for how renewable fuel blending requirements should be
set in an upcoming proposed rule.
http://www.bna.com/epa-grapples-competing-n17179927077/
Bill would ban microbeads from soaps and body washes
The Hill
Senate Democrats have introduced legislation to protect the Great Lakes
from the small plastic microbeads used in body washes, soaps and other
personal care products to exfoliate the skin.
http://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/243113-bill-would-ban-microbeads-from-soaps-and-body-washes
Press Releases
EPA Selects CLIMB Community Development Corporation in Biloxi, Miss. for
Job Training Grant
EPA selects 19 communities for grants to train unemployed individuals to
enter the environmental field, strengthen local economies
Contact: Dawn Harris Young, (404) 562-8421 (Direct), (404) 562-8400 (Main),
harris-young.dawn@epa.gov
ATLANTA - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today
that CLIMB Community Development Corporation in Biloxi, Miss. is one of 19
communities in 17 states and territories selected for approximately $3.6
million in Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training (EWDJT)
grants. Each grantee will receive up to $192,300 to operate environmental
training programs to clean up Brownfields sites in economically distressed
communities.
"EPA's job training program advances economic development by creating job
opportunities for workers to serve in their own communities," said Mathy
Stanislaus, assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Solid Waste and
Emergency Response. "Many graduates—including ex-offenders and veterans--
secure meaningful employment that protects the environment and promotes
economic development in some of our neediest communities."
On Friday, May 22, Assistant Administrator Stanislaus announced one of the
EWDJT grants to St. Louis Community College to highlight the cross
disciplinary environmental training EPA supports under the program. With
the grant funding, St. Louis Community College plans to train 69 unemployed
and underemployed individuals, and place 55 of those in full-time
employment in the environmental field. Each student will receive 240 hours
of core training in hazardous waste remediation; lead and asbestos
abatement worker; mold remediation; lead renovator, repair, and painting;
underground storage tank removal; stormwater management; and other advanced
safety and ecosystem restoration coursework.
Participants who complete the training will earn 19 federal, state, or
university certifications. St. Louis Community College is targeting
underemployed and unemployed residents of the St. Louis metro area,
including St. Louis City and County in Missouri and East St. Louis,
Illinois. Recruitment efforts will focus on individuals living in areas
affected by hazardous waste sites. Key partners include St. Louis
Development Corporation, Eastern Missouri Laborers District Council,
Connections to Success, St. Louis City and County Workforce Investment
Boards, YouthBuild of St. Louis, among other environmental and
community-based organizations.
The EWDJT program provides communities the flexibility to deliver training
that meets the varying local labor market demands of the environmental
sector in their communities. Graduates develop a broader set of skills that
improves their ability to secure, not just short term contractual work, but
full-time, sustainable employment in the environmental field. As a result
of this funding, unemployed and under-employed individuals acquire training
and certifications in a variety of environmental skills, such as: lead and
asbestos abatement, Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response,
environmental health and safety, wastewater treatment, stormwater
management, brownfields assessment and cleanup, electronics recycling,
Superfund site-specific cleanup, Freon removal, emergency response, oil
spill cleanup, native plant re-vegetation, and integrated pest management.
As a result of this training, some graduates of the EWDJT program secured
employment in activities related to the response and cleanup of the World
Trade Centers in New York following the attacks of September 11, Hurricanes
Katrina, Rita, and Sandy, as well as the BP Oil Spill.
Since the program's inception in 1998, EPA has funded 256 job training
grants exceeding $54 million. More than 13,900 individuals have completed
training, and of those, more than 10,000 have secured employment in the
environmental field with an average hourly starting wage of $14.18. This
equates to a cumulative job placement rate of 72 percent.
The EWDJT program was developed in the 1990s, as a result of
recommendations raised by environmental justice leaders suggesting that the
EPA support environmental training to help benefit local residents, and
from an EPA realization that often times local residents were not
benefitting from local remediation and cleanup activities due to the lack
of a locally trained workforce in their communities. Rather than filling
local, environmental jobs with professionals from distant cities, these
grants help to provide an opportunity for local, unemployed residents to
secure careers that make a visible impact cleaning up their communities.
Graduates of the program obtain employment within their communities, areas
which may be affected by blight, economic disinvestment, and solid and
hazardous waste sites.
These grants support training programs that recruit, train, and place
unemployed and under-employed residents of waste-affected communities with
the skills and certifications needed to secure employment in the
environmental field. Projects are funded based on the comprehensiveness of
the training curriculum, the likelihood that graduates will obtain
employment, strong public-private partnerships, and diverse community-based
organization and employer involvement.
EWDJT grants are awarded to a broad range of communities with multiple
indicators of need, including communities affected by the closure of
manufacturing facilities, communities affected by natural disasters,
communities designated as Housing and Urban Development "Promise Zone
Communities," (http://www.hud.gov/promisezones) Economic Development
Administration "Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership"
designated communities (http://www.eda.gov/challenges/imcp), and
HUD/Department of Transportation/EPA "Partnership for Sustainable
Communities" (http://www.sustainablecommunities.gov) designated
communities. The program also serves unemployed, dislocated workers who
have lost their jobs as a result of manufacturing plant closures. By
gaining training through the EWDJT program, these individuals have
re-entered the workforce, and many have secured employment working at other
manufacturing facilities throughout the U.S. Some graduates have also
participated in the cleanup and remediation of former manufacturing and
auto plants, such as the cleanup of the "Chevy in the Hole" site in Flint,
Mich. (http://www.epa.gov/region5/cleanup/chevyinthehole/index.html).
Grantees announced to receive funding today, include:
· Zender Environmental Health and Research Group (Anchorage) Alaska
· Fresno Area Workforce Investment Board, Calif.
· City of Richmond, Calif.
· Denver Indian Center, Inc., Colo.
· West End Neighborhood House (Dover) Del.
· Florida State College at Jacksonville, Fla.
· OAI, Inc. (Chicago) Ill.
· Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board (Lawrence) Mass.
· St. Louis Community College, Mo.
· CLIMB Community Development Corporation (Biloxi) Miss.
· The Fortune Society, Inc. (Long Island City) N.Y.
· Rose State College (Midwest City) Okla.
· Oregon Tradeswomen (Portland) Ore.
· PathStone Corporation, P.R.
· Tarrant County College District, Texas
· Great Lakes Community Conservation Corps (Racine) Wisc.
· Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, Wisc.
· Coalfield Development Corporation (Wayne County) W.Va.
· Groundwork Providence, R.I.
For more information on brownfields grants, including EWDJT grants, by
state, please visit: http://cfpub.epa.gov/bf_factsheets/index.cfm
For more information on EPA's brownfields program, please visit:
http://www.epa.gov/brownfields
