Local Environmental Organizations

A local environmental advocate and regular News-Gazette writer listed many of the opportunities people interested in working to make their environment a better place can find locally. Many of which are associated with or work in collaboration with local government. From the News-Gazette this Sunday (some links added so the reader can jump to their respective websites for more information):

Rob Kanter: Environmental Almanac | Strength of environmental community gives reason for hope
If you’re looking for inspiration and energy this month — and who’s not? — let me call your attention to the state of the environmental community in central Illinois and some of the ways it has flourished over the past year.

Prairie Rivers Network, where I’m a board member and long-time volunteer, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017, and it’s currently stronger than ever before. Thanks to extraordinarily generous financial support from a wide base across the state, and to the superb leadership of Executive Director Carol Hays, Prairie Rivers now boasts a professional staff of 11 people. They’re on the front lines every day fighting big polluters, ensuring the public has access to processes for environmental decision making, helping farmers be better stewards of the land and saving wetlands and wildlife.

It goes on to mention, Grand Prairie Friends, The Land Conservation Foundation, and the central Illinois office of Faith in Place. It also touched on solar which has ended up as a hot topic at the County Zoning Board lately:

Renewable energy got another big boost locally in 2017 thanks to the Solar Urbana-Champaign 2.0, which enabled home and business owners to pool their buying power to make solar more affordable than ever in Champaign County. Through this program, which is sponsored by the City of Urbana and the Midwest Renewable Energy Association, a total of 149 homes and businesses have installed solar arrays over the past two years.

Although I’ll have to come back with the details another time, I want to emphasize that any number of other central Illinois nonprofits continue their good work on the environmental front as well, including the Champaign County Audubon Society, the Upper Sangamon River Conservancy, the Prairie Group of the Sierra Club and Champaign County Bikes.

If running out a room in an update on the state of the environmental community isn’t cause for hope, I can’t imagine what would be.

 Can't argue with that.