Illinois environmental advocates honored with inaugural award
Pam and Lan Richart, co-founders of Eco-Justice Collaborative and based in Champaign, IL, were the first recipients of Prairie Rivers Network's (PRN) Hannon Seeds of Change Award—named for the organization’s founder, Bruce Hannon—at Prairie Rivers Networks’ October 3, 2025, annual dinner. Hannon, who passed away in 2024, was devoted to growing burr oak trees from acorns as well as mentoring environmental activists. He also was instrumental in preventing the flooding of Allerton Park by the Oakley dam proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The award will be given to Illinois organizers who expertly turn those around them into environmentalists.
The Richarts have worked with PRN on many projects over the past decade, including obtaining a consent decree from Dynegy / Vistra to move its coal ash from the floodplain of illinois’ only National Scenic River and legislation that created a state regulatory framework for managing and closing coal ash impoundments in the state. The two most recently collaborated with PRN on advocating for the passage of legislation protecting the Mahomet Aquifer, a sole source aquifer that is the drinking water for nearly a million people in Illinois, from carbon capture and sequestration.
“I cannot think of more appropriate recipients of an award that recognizes outstanding organizing and leadership,” said Andrew Rehn, PRNs’s director of climate policy. “This power couple seems to accomplish everything they make their goal, and they do this by organizing, building a movement, and creating leaders out of everyday folks, just as Bruce Hannon did.”
Why Eco-Justice Collaborative?
Eco-Justice Collaborative (EJC) was founded by Pam and Lan Richart in 2007 after they spent nearly 25 years as principals and owners of a land use and environmental planning business in the western suburbs of Chicago. They sold their successful business to senior personnel in order to infuse justice into their environmental work. Since then, they have initiated projects that have resulted in legislation or policy changes. Their work has a focus on environmental justice and ending our reliance on fossil fuels, which continue to be largely responsible for our changing climate. True to their name, their successes have been through collaboration.
Successful projects including re-ignating the fight to close Chicago's two coal plants, responsible for 42 deaths each year; passing legislation that eliminated the state's coal curriculum that was used to promote the benefits of Illinois coal from Kindergarten through Grade 12; passing coal ash legislation; obtaining a consent decree requiring Dynegy-Vistra to move its coal ash out of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion, Illinois' only National Scenic River; helping draft, negotiate, and pass Illinois' CCS regulatory bill; and most recently, legislation that bans the injection of CO2 through and storage of it under the Mahomet Aquifer, which provides fresh drinking water to nearly 1 million people.
Click here to learn more about EJC, including its mission and accomplishments.
