On Monday, June 15, Prairie Rivers Network was named the National Wildlife Federation’s Affiliate of the Year—highlighting our leadership in protecting water, healing land, and inspiring change.
A note from Prairie Rivers Network’s Executive Director, Maggie Bruns:
On behalf of Prairie Rivers Network, we are so honored to accept the National Wildlife Federation’s Affiliate of the Year award.
Honestly, everyone doing environmental advocacy, conservation, and beyond deserves an award for surviving 2025—what a doozy. That’s why I’m so very proud of everything we’ve been able to accomplish.
As I reflect on this celebratory moment, it’s important to remember the challenges we’ve overcome over the past year. We suddenly lost federal funding for critical energy transition and environmental justice work. We watched countless federal rollbacks and funding cuts of critical laws and agencies that protect our environment and communities. As the minutes pass, the list continues to grow making one thing abundantly clear—our daily to-do list is more critical than ever.
Prairie Rivers Network pushed forward. Last year we grew our team and our board. We raised more money than ever before. We launched new programs and secured new policies to meet the challenges faced by our natural spaces and everyone who calls Illinois home.
Despite the federal chaos, we have several historic wins in Illinois to celebrate.
Our state faced a tremendous threat: The Inflation Reduction Act further incentivized industrialized agriculture to pump their carbon pollution from ethanol plants under Central Illinois at a massive scale. While there may be mixed opinions on carbon sequestration, as a team we had to draw the line at pumping this toxic pollution through and below Illinois’ only sole source aquifer—the Mahomet Aquifer.
We got to work. We mobilized 15 counties that rely on the aquifer and in just 10 months time—against billions of dollars of proposed projects—we secured a bipartisan ban on carbon sequestration through and under the Mahomet Aquifer. This wasn’t just about stopping carbon pollution from being pumped underground, this created safeguards for the drinking water of nearly one million people.
But it doesn’t stop there. In the past year we scaled our research on pesticide drift significantly—increasing our research and testing budget by 108% allowing us to continue to expand the largest data set that exists in the country (possibly the world). This expansion allows us to show monthly snapshots of the mix of pesticides moving through our air, damaging trees and plants as it trespasses in our communities. It’s terrifying, but this work is critical to hold the agrochemical industry accountable—and we refuse to be silenced.
We weren’t done yet. During Illinois’ veto session last year, we helped to pass the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act—showing how Governor Pritzker is not backing down from climate action, expanding grid capacity, and mitigating rising bills as we work to address the climate crisis in our state.
With investments from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), we’ve supported work from the Village of Olmsted on the banks of the Ohio River up to the Quad Cities region. Our work, supported by NWF’s expertise on nature based solutions—is educating local leaders on the predicted heat waves, floods, and other weather—and how things like wetlands, rain gardens, and trees can help build community resiliency in the face of climate change. That investment from NWF into the region has helped to springboard our efforts and I’m thrilled to share that we are on track to permanently protect a 550 acre wetland system in Rock Island in 2027.
While our work may look different than other environmental organizations, these accomplishments are just a few of the NWF One Federation puzzle pieces that Illinois can bring forward. As One Federation transforms, I hope we are all thinking about our own way that our state can build a stronger force for wildlife.
Here’s to all of us pushing through together.
As our team celebrates this moment, we also view it as a reminder that there is more critical work to be done—and the only way we can continue to make progress is with our strong network across Illinois and beyond. Consider donating today to help us celebrate this achievement and continue to take on new challenges that threaten our environment, our water, and our communities everyday.
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