Thank you to all of you who attended our 13th Annual Dinner in October. The chance to gather with like-minded river friends, old and new, is one of the highlights of the year for our staff and board members.

Please visit our flickr site for more pictures of our staff, board of directors, members and friends celebrating our rivers at the Annual Dinner.

If you’ve ever thought about participating in one of the Illinois Marathon races (5K, 10K, half or full marathon, or 5K walk), 2012 is your year!

Prairie Rivers Network is fielding a charity running team. Just sign up through our website and raise money on behalf of Illinois’ rivers and streams.

Whatever your level, there is a race for you. Ask a friend to join you in your race and help protect clean water while having fun at the same time.

Benefits of Running for Prairie Rivers Network

• Supporting a cause you believe in – donations that you bring in from the friends, family, and co-workers that sponsor you will go directly to supporting our Clean Water Act enforcement work
• Guaranteed lowest race registration fee when you register here
• Team Tech T-shirt and Prairie Rivers Network hat
• Rain barrel awarded to biggest fundraiser

We need your help.
Sign Up TODAY and run for your rivers!

Click image for flyer

Mountain communities in the heart of Appalachia are engaged in a high stakes fight to save their land, water and way of life from mountaintop removal coal mining. Join us on Wednesday, October 19th at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign YMCA at 7:30pm when Appalachian Voices comes to Champaign.

Appalachian Voices is an award-winning, environmental non-profit committed to protecting the land, air and water of the central and southern Appalachian region, focusing on reducing coal’s impact on the region and advancing our vision for a cleaner energy future.

Their unique work brings the experience of residents living with some of the most destructive coal mines to audiences across the country. Prairie Rivers Network staff will also discuss what the implications of developments in Appalachia mean for coal mining in the Illinois Coal Basin.

On Saturday October 1st, over 55 students from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, the University of Illinois Chicago, the University of Chicago, Depaul University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Loyola University, and the University of Iowa all boarded a bus to hear directly from community members and organizations in central Illinois’ coalfields who are part of the growing movement to push for a just transition beyond coal here in the Illinois basin.

Today’s students represent the future, and it will be up to their generation to carry on the struggle for clean, healthy and sustainable communities in the coalfields of the Midwest.

Student Coalfields to Clean Energy Tour

Map and Itinerary

See press coverage from the Daily Illini and the Daily Iowan.
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A swarm is coming! The Beehive Design Collective will present a Graphic Workshop and Picture-Lecture at the Urbana Champaign Independent Media Center on October 6, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. to release their long-anticipated “True Cost of Coal” graphic campaign! This innovative graphic is a visual exploration of Mountaintop Removal coal mining and Resistance.

Two years in the making, “The True Cost of Coal” is an elaborate narrative illustration that explores the complex story of mountaintop removal coal mining and the broader impacts of coal. The image is the culmination of an intensive, collaborative research process.

Guest Blog Post by Dr. Walt Kelly, Groundwater Geochemist

Read Walt’s Blog: Water Quality, Focus on Illinois

The award winning documentary Bag It will be shown at the Art Theater in downtown Champaign on Tuesday, September 20, 2011, at 7 PM. I have seen the film and highly recommend it. It starts out as a critical look at plastic bags, but ends up being a much broader examination of the effects of plastic on the environment and human society.

Spoiler alert: the film has a point of view, and it’s that our overreliance on plastic products is bad for us and the environment. The negative effects of degraded plastic on marine life is especially distressing. {Continue Reading »}