Nat. PETE HAZMAT Training Initiative at DOE Nuclear Weapons Complex

About This Grant

The Partnership for Environmental Technology Education (PETE) submits this proposal on behalf of the Community College for Health and Safety Training (CCCHST) serving Department of Energy (DOE) environmental restoration and waste management sites at: Oak Ridge Operations, TN; Portsmouth Site, OH; Savannah River Site, SC; Pantex, TX and Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM. The intent of CCCHST-DOE is to provide convenient, consistent, memorable, and cost-effective 29 CFR 1910.120 worker training to DOE contractors and subcontractors. Workers gain the knowledge and skills to protect themselves and their communities from exposure to hazardous materials during hazardous waste operations, facility decommissioning and decontamination, hazardous materials transportation, environmental restoration of contaminated facilities or chemical emergency response. Over the five-year award, CCCHST members including Amarillo Community College (TX), Roane State Community College (TN), Greenville Technical College (SC), and Santa Fe Community College (NM) will train 17,500, workers, technicians and supervisors, through 250,000 contact hours of training, to protect themselves, their facilities, and their communities from exposure to hazardous materials encountered during hazardous waste site clean-up, in the transportation of hazardous materials, and in the response to releases of hazardous materials. Each year, 3,500 workers will successfully complete 350 courses for a total 35,000 contact hours of raining. Annually, an average 75 courses will be delivered online. PETE will provide hazardous materials curriculum, developed by the Hazardous Materials Training and Research Institute and adapted and maintained by PETE. PETE will provide students online access to curriculum for 24 hours of the 40-hour HazWoper, 12 hours of the 24-hour Emergency Spill Response and 8-hour Refreshers. PETE will also support other DOE-approved curriculum requested by the DOE facilities. PETE will provide centralized record keeping and quality control for the consortium, submitting to the NIEHS data management system the number of students trained at CCCHST-DOE sites and their demographic data, registering curricula with the NIEHS Clearinghouse, providing technical assistance, conducting site audits, reviewing student evaluations, acting upon the guidance of the advisory committee, and mediating the delivery of training with other NIEHS-supported consortia.