Written by Amanda Pankau and Randa Watts, Prairie Rivers Network
Illinois’ land, water, and communities have been shaped by coal for generations, and Prairie Rivers Network has long worked alongside people across the state to address coal’s environmental and public health impacts. Through a new collaboration with the Climate Jobs Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, we are deepening that work by helping to preserve and share the stories of people whose lives have been shaped by coal—those who worked in the industry, lived alongside it, and organized to protect their communities from its harms. As Illinois’ coal industry continues to decline, the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project offers an important opportunity to preserve stories, document lived experiences, and better understand the legacy coal has left across the state.
Prairie Rivers Network has been a proud part of the Listening Project for a year, helping to ground the project in history and science, establish connections, and record oral histories in coal communities across the state. In particular, we helped record the oral histories of advocates and PRN members involved in campaigns like Stand Up to Coal, Protect the Middle Fork, and Citizens Against Longwall Mining. These stories reflect a unique relationship with coal in Illinois—one shaped not by working in the industry, but by organizing people to protect water (including our state’s only National Scenic River), public health, farmland, and the places they call home.
The Listening Project’s recorded oral histories (60 and counting) will be publicly released as a collection in 2027. In the meantime, we are honored to give you a preview of three oral histories from Prairie Rivers Network members.
Mike and Kristin Camp: (9-25-2025, recorded in Danville, IL)
Mike and Kristin recounted their lifelong love for the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, and two different fights to save it.
In their youth, they were both early Prairie Rivers Network partners, successfully fighting for “National Wild and Scenic River” status for the river, a designation that finally protected the river from a long-discussed dam project. The dam would have flooded the river, its floodplain, and Mike’s former childhood home, turning the area into a reservoir. Mike admitted that he was initially skeptical of the impact that their grassroots activism could have, sharing, “Being a cynic, I was surprised that organic people can make things happen…that was my first experience with that.”
Years later, the Camps helped pull back the curtain on another threat to the river: the coal ash that sat on its banks, polluting its water and threatening a catastrophic spill. They helped form and became leaders in the Protect the Middle Fork grassroots group that successfully fought to ensure the clean-up of the coal ash. Their efforts also helped pass the Coal Ash Pollution Prevention Act to ensure protections at coal ash impoundments statewide. They recalled the contributions of partners like EcoJustice Collaborative, Prairie Rivers Network, then-County Board member Kevin Green, the late State Senator Scott Bennett, State Representatives Carol Ammons and Mike Marron, as well as countless other advocates who worked by their side. Kristin shared how combining their authentic story with collective action worked: “We walked the walk and talked the talk…we got the job done…it is proof that a small group of committed people can make things happen.”
Sue Smith and Nancy Goodall (9-25-25, recorded in Danville, IL)
Sue and Nancy shared deeply interconnected experiences leading the grassroots group Stand Up to Coal in a successful decade-long fight against the proposed Bulldog Mine in Vermilion County.
They recalled, in 2009, a small blue postcard arriving in their mailboxes, inviting them to a meeting to discuss the possibility of farmers negotiating contracts with a coal company. As farming families with a rich history of stewarding the land, Sue, Nancy, and Nancy’s late husband, Charles, were the first residents to raise concern about the proposed coal mine. For Sue, it was the mine’s plan to withdraw water from the Salt Fork River near her family farm, where her children grew up playing in the water and surrounding wilderness, that spurred her into action.
Thanks to the questions they asked and the facts they laid out, other community concerns began to grow around subsidence, legacy pollution, and a history of broken promises. As Sue described, “…thanks to Charles, he really started bringing that attention to the area. And I think little by little, people began to pick up on that in one way or another.” After Charles’ passing in 2013, Sue, Nancy, and others like Jonathan Ashbrook, carried the torch and “took the show on the road,” as Sue and Jonathan called it. They met with groups and organizations to build awareness and understanding about the potential impacts of the coal mine, they managed a website to share information publicly, and they tracked the mine’s permits. Organizations like Prairie Rivers Network, EcoJustice Collaborative, and Faith in Place, as well as other residents of other coal communities, like Mary Ellen DeClue (see Mary Ellen’s story below), were critical in supporting their work. Finally, in April 2022, the group was able to celebrate their success in defeating the Bulldog Mine when the mining permit expired due to lack of response from the mining company. Sue praised the courage and resilience of the many people who joined them in the years-long efforts, and she described the importance of people fighting for their land, water, and communities: “These grassroots groups have to rise up and invent the wheel as they go along.”
Mary Ellen DeClue (10-11-25, recorded in Litchfield, IL)
Mary Ellen has been a leader on Illinois coal issues for over fifteen years, standing alongside Prairie Rivers Network on countless issues. She tells the story of how she came to be that advocate and partner.
In the early 1960s, Mary Ellen studied chemistry at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, MO, along the Mississippi River, where she earned a B.S. and B.A in chemistry. She recalled that she was very likely the only female working on a chemistry degree in that period. Later she received a M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. She went on to a 15 year career doing medical research and 15 years of teaching chemistry at the community college and high school levels.
Later, her biochemistry background would prepare her for a unique understanding of the environmental and human health impacts from a coal mine that was proposed in Montgomery County, where she lives. She first learned about the then-proposed Deer Run mine when the mine wanted to use water from Lake Lou Yeager near her home. Another local woman, Catherine Edmiston, had helped start a grassroots group, Citizens Against Longwall Mining (CALM), along with other community members who were concerned about water quality, water use, and impacts to farmland. Mary Ellen was quick to join the group and put her environmental and chemistry background to work. She reflected on the power and privilege that the coal industry seems to have, sharing that “The coal industry is extremely influential and intimidating…coalfield communities are just, they’re being run over.” For years, Mary Ellen and others with CALM have not let this stop their advocacy in protecting communities and the environment from these powerful interests. To this day, Mary Ellen and CALM are a critical voice to raise awareness in the community about the impacts of longwall mining, and they continue to push back against mine and water permits to ensure the strongest protections possible. Mary Ellen’s advocacy has not stopped in Montgomery County, she has been a long-time champion and voice for statewide and federal coal mining and coal power plant issues, speaking at public hearings and submitting comments.
The Listening Project will continue this summer and fall as we gather and tell more stories. If your life has been shaped by coal mining or coal-fired power, we encourage you to participate in the Listening Project and help ensure the human-side of Illinois’ coal history is not forgotten. You can sign up to give an oral history here.
In September and October 2025, Kristin and Mike Camp, Sue Smith and Nancy Goodall, and Mary Ellen DeClue recorded oral histories for the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project. This article includes stories and memories narrated during the recording of their oral histories.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Climate Jobs Institute leads the Illinois Coal Workers & Communities Listening Project in partnership with experts from the Harlem High School Documentary Project, Prairie Rivers Network, Department of Urban & Regional Planning, Labor Education Program, Illinois Extension, and Humanities Research Institute. The Listening Project seeks to learn from Illinois coal workers, their families, and communities impacted by mine and plant closures — preserving their stories and informing policies for a just energy transition.
Written by Amanda Pankau and Randa Watts, Prairie Rivers Network
Mike and Kristin Camp’s oral history was recorded by Johnathan Hettinger (Climate Jobs Institute, lead interviewer), Randa Watts (Prairie Rivers Network, secondary interviewer), Alayna Moore (Prairie Rivers Network, secondary interviewer), Magdalena Novoa (Department of Urban & Regional Planning, secondary interviewer), and Emily Guske (Climate Jobs Institute, camera and audio).
Sue Smith and Nancy Goodall’s oral history was recorded by Johnathan Hettinger (Climate Jobs Institute, lead interviewer), Alayna Moore (Prairie Rivers Network, secondary interviewer), Randa Watts (Prairie Rivers Network, secondary interviewer), and Nick Stange (Harlem High School Documentary Project, camera and audio).
Mary Ellen DeClue’s oral history was recorded by Emily Guske (Climate Jobs Institute, lead interviewer), Magdalena Novoa (Department of Urban and Regional Planning, secondary interviewer), and Nick Stange (Harlem High School Documentary Project, camera and audio).
