Brownfields Job Training and Development
Demonstration Pilot Fact Sheet

City of Hamilton, OH

EPA's Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is designed to empower states, communities, and other stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together in a timely manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield is a site, or portion thereof, that has actual or perceived contamination and an active potential for redevelopment or reuse. EPA is funding: assessment demonstration pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to assess brownfields sites and to test cleanup and redevelopment models; job training pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to provide training for residents of communities affected by brownfields to facilitate cleanup of brownfields sites and prepare trainees for future employment in the environmental field; and, cleanup revolving loan fund programs (each funded up to $500,000 over five years) to capitalize loan funds to make loans for the environmental cleanup of brownfields. These pilot programs are intended to provide EPA, states, tribes, municipalities, and communities with useful information and strategies as they continue to seek new methods to promote a unified approach to site assessment, environmental cleanup, and redevelopment.

PILOT SNAPSHOT

Hamilton, Ohio

Date of Announcement:
May 2000

Amount: $200,000

Profile: The Pilot will train 36 participants as environmental technicians. Students will be recruited from unemployed, Welfare-to-Work, and other disadvantaged residents in the state Enterprise Zone, which is economically depressed because of the presence of many, abandoned, underused, and potentially contaminated industrial and commercial facilities.

BACKGROUND

EPA has selected the City of Hamilton for a Brownfields Job Training and Development Demonstration Pilot. The City of Hamilton is the recipient of a Brownfields Assessment Pilot and a Brownfields Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund Pilot. The City of Hamilton (population 65,000) is located in southeastern Ohio, approximately 20 miles north of Cincinnati. The Job Training Pilot will focus on the state Enterprise Zone, which contains approximately half of the city’s residents. Thirteen percent of the residents living within the Enterprise Zone are minorities. Residents of the economically depressed Enterprise Zone suffer from a 12 percent unemployment rate and 36 percent poverty rate (statistics based on the 1990 census). Hamilton has been designated by the State of Ohio as one of the State’s seven Distressed Communities.

The Enterprise Zone includes an abundance of older manufacturing facilities, many of which have not been modernized for decades. Many of these facilities are vacant or their use has shifted from their original intended use. The loss of jobs caused by disinvestment in these facilities has decreased the community’s economic vitality and increased the number of abandoned and underused properties. Training of local residents is needed to complement the redevelopment efforts instituted through the two existing EPA pilots and provide livable wage jobs for residents of the Enterprise Zone.

TRAINING OBJECTIVES

The City of Hamilton plans to train 36 participants, achieve a 70 percent placement rate, and support career placement of graduates for one year after the training is completed. Participants will be recruited from unemployed, Welfare-to-Work, and other disadvantaged residents of the Enterprise Zone. The 195-hour Pilot training program will cover environmental awareness, OSHA 40-hour health and safety, emergency response, remediation technologies, environmental sampling, lead abatement, incident command, and technology demonstrations, including training in the use of innovative assessment and cleanup technologies. Refresher courses will be offered in the second year of the training program.

The City of Hamilton’s training efforts will be supported by organizations such as the University of Findlay, Butler County Department of Human Services, Butler County Private Industry Council, and Support to Encourage Low-Income Families (SELF). The U.S. Department of Energy, through its contractor Fluor Daniel Fernald, has committed to providing demonstrations on the operation of various remediation technologies. The Greater Hamilton Chamber of Commerce has committed to conducting a survey of local environmental employers to determine their hiring needs. The City of Hamilton offers tax incentives to employers for hiring low-to-middle income local residents.

ACTIVITIES

Activities planned as part of this Pilot include:

Conducting outreach to recruit unemployed, Welfare-to-Work, and other disadvantaged residents in the state Enterprise Zone;
Conducting brownfields 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.

CONTACTS

City of Hamilton
(513) 868-5855

Regional Brownfields Team
U.S. EPA - Region 5
(312) 886-4747

Visit the EPA Region 5 Brownfields web site at:

http://www.epa.gov/R5Brownfields/

The cooperative agreement for this Pilot has not yet been negotiated; therefore, activities described in this fact sheet are subject to change.

For further information, including specific grant contacts, additional grant information, brownfields news and events, and publications and links, visit the EPA Brownfields web site.

United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, D.C. 20460

Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5101)

EPA 500-F-00-171
May 2000

Outreach and Special Projects Staff (5105)

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