Illinois environmental advocates honored with inaugural award
Prairie Rivers Network (PRN) recently celebrated the accomplishments of three Illinoisans, recognizing their leadership in efforts aligned with advancing PRN’s mission of protecting water, healing land, and inspiring change. The celebration took place at PRN’s Annual Dinner event, held October 3 in Champaign.
PRN debuted its inaugural Hannon Seeds of Change Award—named for the organization’s founder, Bruce Hannon—at the event. Hannon, who passed away in 2024, was devoted to growing burr oak trees from acorns as well as mentoring environmental activists. The award is given to Illinois organizers who expertly turn those around them into environmentalists.
Pam and Lan Richart, co-founders of Eco-Justice Collaborative and based in Champaign, IL, are the first recipients of the award. The Richarts have worked with PRN on many projects over the past decade. 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.”
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Who is Eco-Justice Collaborative?
Eco-Justice Collaborative 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 successful change, with a focus on environmental justice and ending our reliance on fossil fuels that is 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 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 Eco-Justice Collaborative, including its mission and accomplishments. More recent success have been achieved by partnering with Prairie Rivers Network, also based in Champaign, Illinois. They include passing coal ash legislation; removing coal ash from the Middle Fork of the Scenic River; and passing a legislative ban to protect the Mahomet Aquifer from CO2 pollution.
