The U.S. EPA will distribute more than $2.3 million in job training grants geared toward cleaning up contaminated properties and turning them into productive community assets.

Under the Brownfield Initiative, grants of up to $200,000 will be awarded to non-profit organizations and local governments to teach environmental assessment and cleanup job skills to those living in low income areas near brownfield sites in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Since 1998, over $22 million in brown-fields job training funds has been awarded and approximately 3,000 people have completed training programs.

In 2002, President Bush signed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act to help states and communities around the country clean up and revitalize brownfield sites. Since the beginning of the initial brown-fields program, the EPA has awarded over 1,000 assessment grants totaling approximately $262 million, 200 revolving loan fund grants of over $200 million, and 325 cleanup grants totaling $65 million.

Through EPA s Brownfields Job Training Program, President Bush is putting both people and property back to work, said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. By training people to clean up their own neighborhoods, EPA is improving lives and livelihoods in communities across the nation.