McComb Fire Station No. 3 became a part of the Southwest Mississippi Community College campus last week as 25 people from the Pike, Amite, Walthall and Wilkinson counties trained for what they hope will be a job in the oil and gas industry.
Make that the cleanup division of the oil and gas industry.
The group is the first of at least three classes taking a 40-hour Occupational Safety and Health Administration certification training called “HAZWOPER,” which will qualify them to remove hazardous waste like the oil from the BP well blowout affecting the Gulf Coast.
HAZWOPER is short for Hazardous Waste Operation and Emergency Response, a week-long certification course covering hazardous materials safety and containment procedures, including hands-on training with safety suits and decontamination procedures. The class runs from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Officials with SMCC’s Work Force Training Program said the oil pollution crisis was the catalyst for the program.
“We had a number of people calling us asking if we were going to have certification classes in HAZWOPER,” said Tim Stogner, industrial services training coordinator at SMCC.
He said the classes were being held at Fire Station No. 3 because the station has the classrooms and equipment, and the fire department has the certified instructors to properly train the students taking the course.
Stogner said McComb Fire Chief B.J. Nettles called the school about a partnership between SMCC and the city to hold the classes at the fire station.
Once word got out about the program, “we had 200 people on a waiting list for the class,” SMCC work force training coordinator Loran Cook said.
“When we decided to hold the classes, we notified those 200 people about the June 1 sign-up date before we announced it,” she said. “When we arrived for work on June 1, there was already a line of people waiting to get in to fill out an application. We filled the first class by 9:30 in the morning.”
Cook said the second class, which begins today, quickly filled, and the June 22 class has eight spots left.
The class has a $325 fee for Mississippi residents and $425 for non-residents, she said.
Cook said students in the first class are from the four counties — Pike, Amite, Walthall and Wilkinson — that the college serves. The majority of the students in that class were from Pike County, she added.
The main reason for strong response to the class, she said, is the potential for jobs along the Coast cleaning up the oil from the BP accident.
“We had several people tell us they had called companies involved in the cleanup and were told that if they were certified through this course, they could be hired,” Cook said.
“A lot of the people who called us are people who are currently unemployed,” she said. “Some of them are people who were working on oil rigs and laid off because of the order to stop drilling in the Gulf. One man who called said the drilling company he worked for had just laid him off.”
Completing the class not only qualifies the students to find jobs with companies tasked with containing and cleaning the oil sludge that washes ashore but also for other hazardous wastes cleaning jobs, Stogner said.
“With this training, they can go to work for any company involved in cleaning hazardous materials spills anywhere in the country,” he said.
“This class covers everything,” he said. “One of the things we tell the people taking the class is that they may have to relocate for a short while.”
And Stogner said the students take their training seriously.
“They’re here at 6:30 in the morning,” he said. “They’re really determined to do this. They want to learn.”
Nettles said he sees that determination when watches the class.
“You can see it in their faces,” he said. “This class is different from a lot that I’ve seen. A lot of classes, when they break for lunch, everyone leaves. A lot of these folks stay in the classroom. They want to put in the time and do what’s required.”
The students aren’t the only ones receiving praise.
“The instructors in this class are very thorough and very professional,” said Thomas Thompson of McComb. “They know what they’re doing and they’re doing a very good job.”
Thompson said he was interested in the class because of the potential to work on the oil cleanup. He added that he is also interested in the other possibilities the training can open up.
Garry Hodges, also of McComb, said he took the class for the same reason — the oil cleanup. Hodges got some early instruction on hazmat suits, acting as a model for the class while McComb firefighters showed the class the proper way to put one of several hazmat suits on.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Hodges said of the experience.
Being able contribute to helping the environment was the reason Bob King and Marilyn Tyler of Bogue Chitto signed up for the class.
“We were looking for a way to help the Gulf Coast,” Tyler said. “We had been reading about the problems in the newspaper and watching it on TV and we wanted to do something to make a difference.
“Southwest has done a very good job with this,” King said. “And everyone here will have the training to see that the job is done right.”
Gloster Alderman Albert Fields said he was attending the class to broaden his background but admitted that he was “hoping to go and get a pretty decent job with this oil spill.
“What we learn here, we’ll be ready for several different jobs — it’s a good feeling,” he said.
