Tacoma outlines EPA brownfields job-training program; early cohorts show hires

On Feb. 25, 2025, the City of Tacoma Economic Development Committee received an update on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency brownfields job-training grant that city staff said will support remediation work and local hiring.

The program matters because Tacoma’s industrial past left contaminated properties across the city and the surrounding port, and remediation projects require trained technicians. Deborah Trevorrow, workforce grama analyst at Community and Economic Development, told the committee that the city’s EPA-funded training is intended to create a local pipeline of certified remediation workers able to support cleanup projects tied to the Port of Tacoma and other remediation efforts.

Trevorrow said Tacoma has a long industrial history, citing the Asarco copper smelter and the Tacoma Smelter Plume; she said the EPA placed Commencement Bay and the smelter site on its Superfund list in 1983. She also summarized a Department of Ecology study that the city shared with committee members, saying there are 1,024 sites in Pierce County and 908 of those are in the city of Tacoma. Trevorrow said the port has removed about 1,300,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from local waterways and that the port and other agencies are continuing assessment and cleanup work.

Trevorrow described the…