Looking Ahead to a New Decade of Environmental Justice
and Announcing Midwest Environmental Advocates’ New Leader!

Dear Friends,
We’ve come a long way in 10 years.  In 1999, when we founded Midwest Environmental Advocates, manure contamination was considered an unavoidable part of rural life, green was a color – not a movement, and the people of Wisconsin were entirely without a legal advocate to stand up for the public interest in clean air and water.

Midwest Environmental Advocates has worked tirelessly to move beyond the harsh realities of 1999. Over the past decade we have improved enforcement of environmental laws, filed hundreds of comments and challenges to ensure that new rules and laws will deliver clean air and water, won dozens of precedent-setting cases, and assisted almost 1,000 people faced with environmental crises threatening their homes and communities. Just in this past year we:

  • settled one lawsuit to stop severe water pollution by a corn ethanol facility, and obtained a favorable court ruling against another ethanol facility;
  • educated the public and key decision makers on the emerging legal issues posed by global climate change; and
  • partnered with diverse communities in Milwaukee to keep the community’s water in public hands.

While we are proud of our past accomplishments, we are not content to rest on our laurels. We recognize that a new decade brings new challenges. It is with the greatest pleasure that we introduce the new leader who will help us rise to meet the challenges yet to come: 
Kimberlee Wright, a longtime Wisconsin resident and tireless advocate will assume the duties of Midwest Environmental Advocates’ Executive Director in 2010. 

Ms. Wright brings decades of experience as a nonprofit executive, attorney, and environmental advocate, most recently protecting public lands at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  We are confident her experience and dedication will serve us well, both in continuing our tradition of innovative
environmental advocacy and in guiding the organization to fantastic new successes.

There has never been a greater need for a strong, public environmental advocate.  At Midwest Environmental Advocates, we believe that our country and our region are standing at a crossroads.  In one direction lies the status quo, a steady decline in our natural resources and an increase in the desperation of communities and families asked to shoulder the casualties and costs of environmental degradation. In the other direction lies a new environmental ethic that recognizes the social, economic and environmental health of our region are inseparably interconnected.

Midwest Environmental Advocates commits to making the status quo a thing of the past, no matter what obstacles lay ahead.  In the next year we will:

  • curb climate change gases by getting dirty coal utilities to clean up their act;
  • hold the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accountable for failing to reduce algae-causing pollution that fouls our lakes, rivers and streams; and
  • expand MEA’s community education program designed to empower individuals and community groups to advocate for themselves without needing a lawyer.

All of our efforts would be impossible without the encouragement, dedication and support of our broad community of donors.
Your generosity lets us send our attorneys to distant communities to provide badly needed legal support.  Your support sustains our presence at the state Capitol to ensure that our laws do more than pay lip-service to environmental protection.  You make it possible for us to help those who never pictured themselves as environmentalists - until the day a massive project threatened the land they’ve lived on and loved for decades.  You keep Midwest Environmental Advocates vigilant and ready.

This year we ask you to give a gift of environmental justice.  Help ensure that our communities have access to clean air, clean water and clean government for another decade. Your contribution allows Midwest Environmental Advocates to continue working on critical issues in your community.  Please give as generously as you can. 

Sincerely,    

arlen                         

Arlen Christenson
President, Board of Directors
Midwest Environmental Advocates