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Western Region Universities Consortium


WETP Cooperative Agreement Awardee:

Principal Investigator/Institution


Linda Delp

Tel (310) 794-5964
Fax (310) 794-6403
ldelp@ucla.edu

  

University of California Los Angeles
Labor Occupational Safety & Health Program
Box 951478
Los Angeles, California 90095-1478
http://www.losh.ucla.edu (http://www.losh.ucla.edu) Exit NIEHS Website









Program Contact


Janis Heple

Tel (530) 757-8602
Fax (530) 757-8634
jheple@unexmail.ucdavis.edu

  

University of California Davis Extension
1333 Research Park Drive #251
Davis, California 95616-4852








Target Training Populations

WRUC logo The Consortium targets superfund site workers, state and county emergency response personnel, hazardous waste and hazardous materials transportation personnel, and waste site assessment workers. Reaching underserved workers is an emphasis of the Consortium; WRUC members collaborate with community-based and tribal organizations to provide training for underrepresented minorities, for populations in the Southwest, Hawaii, Alaska, U.S. affiliated islands and for those along the U.S. - Mexican border. We are also expanding to target frontline workers at west coast ports.

Program Description

The Consortium consists of five university-based programs. Consortium members collaborate with a variety of organizations to provide health and safety training for workers who handle hazardous waste and hazardous materials in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region IX (California, Arizona, Nevada and the Pacific Islands) and EPA Region X (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska).

The Western Region Universities Consortium (WRUC) offers a full range of Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) courses including: hazardous waste cleanup and investigation, supervisor and refresher courses; treatment, storage and disposal (TSD) facility and refresher courses; first responder awareness operations, HazMat Technician and Incident Commander, and refresher courses ;Department of Transportation (DOT) and refresher courses; confined space courses; and hazard awareness courses. The Consortium also provides train-the-trainer courses for maquiladora workers and for NIEHS trainers from other programs and participates in organizing national trainers' exchanges. Many courses can be provided in either English or Spanish.

In addition to training, other key objectives of the program include:

  1. Increase access to hazardous waste and hazardous materials training for workers and supervisors who are non-English speaking and/or have limited literacy skills through innovative outreach efforts, provision of multilingual and limited literacy materials, and targeted training;
  2. Train community-based environmental organizations to monitor hazardous waste site assessment and cleanup operations at hazardous waste sites in their communities;
  3. Expand outreach and training programs in collaboration with community based and tribal organizations to reach underrepresented minorities who handle hazardous waste/materials at sites throughout the Southwest, in the U.S. affiliated islands and Alaska, and along the Mexican border.
  4. Partner with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) to implement a new West Coast Ports Worker Training Initiative, expanding the scope and target population of the WRUC by adapting existing NIEHS curricula to address hazmat and security concerns facing frontline workers at ports which rank among the largest in the world.

Project Duration

  • September 1, 2005 - July 31, 2010

Grant Number:

  • U45ES06173

Other Participating Organizations

USA.gov Department of Health & Human Services National Institutes of Health
This page URL: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/careers/hazmat/awardees/wruc.cfm
NIEHS website: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/
Email the Web Manager at webmanager@niehs.nih.gov
Last Reviewed: May 07, 2007