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Brownfields Success Stories
Getting the Lead Out--Creating New Opportunities in the Old Lead Belt
Residents of the Old Lead Belt counties of Madison and St. Francois, Missouri, are being offered new career opportunities through EPA's first rural Job Training and Development Demonstration Pilot. Madison and St. Francois counties (combined population of 25,000), located 60 miles south of St. Louis in the Ozarks, are suffering with a depressed economy due to the demise of the area's lead mining industry. The Pilot grant awarded to MAC is providing valuable environmental training to residents who are recruited from low-income communities in the area and who are often involved in the Welfare-to-Work and Trade Readjustment Act (TRA) programs. The Pilot trains participants in mine waste site assessment and cleanup, emphasizing the use of innovative technologies such as phytoremediation of lead, sludge applications, in situ soil flushing, and phytostabilization. Students get hands-on experience through access to the Bonne Terre Pilot brownfields sites for study and fieldwork. Graduates of the program receive Brownfields Worker Certification and can apply their training toward an associate's degree in environment, health, and safety at MAC or another institution. The job training program is off to a successful start, having graduated 13 of 18 students in the first training cycle, with a retention rate of 72 percent. All 13 graduates are now employed; one graduate immediately began work with an environmental placement firm and, through commitment and hard work, moved from an entry-level cleanup job paying $10 an hour to a $29 per hour position within two months. Her foreman commented that she and her fellow MAC job training graduates had the finest environmental knowledge base out of any technicians he had seen in years. For more information on the Mineral Area College Job Training Pilot, contact Shawn Grindstaff, Mineral Area College, (573) 518-2153.