Verena Owen to get Special Achievment Award

Joyce Blumenshine to get Special Sevice Award

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Verena Owen, of Winthrop Harbor, Ill., has won the Sierra Club's 2009 Special Achievement Award. She will be honored Sept. 26 in San Francisco at the Sierra Club Honors and Awards Banquet.   Owen is the volunteer chair of the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign, which has the mission of protecting local communities from pollution from coal-fired power plants. Her work, which began locally when a new natural gas 'peaker plant' was proposed near her home, has grown from challenging air permits in Illinois to being a crucial part of the Sierra Club's successful national campaign. In Illinois, Owen was critical in stopping or stalling at least six new coal-fired power plants from being built, the shutdown of two old power plants, and the increased purchase of wind power from Springfield's utility and the Illinois State Government. As a result, more than 15 millions tons of carbon dioxide will not be released into our atmosphere annually, along with emissions of soot, smog and mercury. Owen has become an expert on reviewing Environmental Protection Agency air permits and the EPA's process of issuing these permits. Owen is the only civilian invited by the EPA to service on its Title V air permit task force.   In her role as chair for the National Coal Campaign, Owen is dedicated to empowering more Sierra Club volunteers to become active leaders in their local coal-fired power plant challenges. She has been instrumental in connecting activists across the nation with monthly activist calls, and has created a listserve for such activists. She manages a small grants program through the Coal Campaign that provides funding for conferences, outreach campaigns and video productions to support the campaign.   ###

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -Joyce Blumenshine of Peoria, Ill., has won the 2009 Sierra Club Special Service Award for her three decades of conservation efforts in Illinois. Blumenshine will be honored Sept. 26 in San Francisco at the Sierra Club Honors and Awards Banquet.   Blumenshine chairs the Mines Committee of the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club and is also chair of the Illinois Chapter's Conservation Committee. In these roles, she has been a leader in addressing the onslaught of new coal mines proposed in Illinois and in stopping pollution of rivers, streams and wetlands from coal mine runoff. She has also worked prevent the destruction of wetlands, rivers and prime farmland from land subsidence due to underground longwall mining activities.   Blumenshine has worked with citizen groups throughout Illinois to oppose coal mines that will impact streams and wetlands. Her recent efforts have focused on mines that would affect sStreams and wetlands of the Shoal Creek watershed, the Coffeen Lake State Fish & Wildlife Area, streams and wetlands in the Middle Fork Big Muddy River watershed and streams tributary to the Kaskaskia River State Fish & Wildlife Areas. Blumenshine has spearheaded efforts to challenge the IDNR permit to allow Capital Resources to strip mine over 600 acres of land located between Banner Marsh State Fish and Wildlife Area, and Rice Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area, along Illinois Route 24, which is a federally designated Scenic Byway. Both state conservation areas are listed as Globally Important Migrating Bird Habitat. The Illinois Attorney General's office and the town of Banner are working together with Blumenshine and the Sierra Club's local Heart of Illinois Group to oppose this mine proposal in Fulton County.   Blumenshine has also been active in opposing the expansion of the Peoria Disposal Company (PDC) hazardous waste landfill in Peoria County and the proposal to send electric arc furnace dust, currently classified as a hazardous material, to the PDC-owned Indian Creek Landfill in Tazewell County which lies over a major aquifer.   "In each of these campaigns, Joyce plays a unifying role," said Becki Clayborn, the Sierra Club Regional Representative in Chicago. "She brings together Sierra Club and non-Sierra Club groups of concerned citizens to join forces in challenging a new mine or landfill."   ###