Lewiston was one of 16 cities in the nation to get the
job-training grants.
LEWISTON – A $200,000 federal grant will allow the city to train as many as 80 local people in environmental cleanup skills. The city was one of 16 across the country to get Environmental Protection Agency job-training grants Wednesday.
The money will pay for a two-year training program designed to make local workers qualified environmental cleanup technicians.
“This is designed to help low-income people and the under or unemployed,” said Chris Lombard, a job training coordinator for the EPA.
Classes will be offered through Central Maine Community College and Women Unlimited.
They will cover basic construction skills, lead and asbestos abatement, Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety guidelines and hazardous material handling. Advanced tracks will teach commercial truck hazardous waste hauling and brownfield property redevelopment.
Brownfield sites are contaminated properties that are valuable to a community for potential redevelopment or reuse, according to the EPA.
The local wage range for those jobs is between $12 and $13 per hour, Lombard said.
“We’re looking to give them a wide range of skills, and then let them use those skills on projects, locally,” city grants coordinator Alyson Stone said.
The city of Lewiston won a $500,000 brownfield grant to clean up the Bates Mill complex two years ago, about the same time it won a $75,000 grant in to help evaluate contamination at the 1.9-acre W.S. Libbey Mill site.
“The more dollars we get for remedial work, the more those jobs are in demand,” Stone said.
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