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Midwest Environmental Advocates

@midwestadvocates

Midwest Environmental Advocates is a nonprofit environmental law center working to defend our rights to clean air and water.

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03.02.2025
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Latest posts by Midwest Environmental Advocates @midwestadvocates

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Residents want Portage County farm to conduct better groundwater monitoring A group of residents want a judge to require a Portage County farm to conduct more protective groundwater monitoring, saying a settlement reached between the farm and state regulators weakened oversig...

“We’re not asking for anything radical. We’re really just asking that people can drink the water that’s coming out of their tap." —MEA client Katy Bailey

11.08.2025 19:16 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Legal Challenge to Line 5 Pipeline Set to Begin in Ashland | Midwest Environmental Advocates MEA attorneys are preparing for a multi-week hearing challenging state-issued permits for the construction of a new 41-mile section of oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin.

MEA attorneys will be in Ashland tomorrow for the first day of legal proceedings in our fight to block permits for new construction on Enbridge Line 5. Proceedings are expected to continue through the first week of October.

11.08.2025 16:56 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Legal Victory for MEA is a Win for Government Transparency and Accountability | Midwest Environmental Advocates In a decision issued this week, an appellate court addressed two significant issues that will affect open government and the public records law moving forward: whether text messages on private cell ph...

The ability to recover fees is vital for journalists and others who have to sue to obtain public records. A recent court decision affirmed that legal fees can be awarded even in cases where the records are turned over after a lawsuit has been filed but before a final decision is issued.

06.08.2025 17:03 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Wisconsin Supreme Court rules Evers can ban conversion therapy, reins in power of the Legislature The liberal-controlled court ruled that the Republican-controlled legislative committee overstepped in barring a ban on conversion therapy.

👏👏👏 This decision is a win for Wisconsin's environment. Committee vetoes can no longer be used to block vital environmental safeguards, as happened in 2020 to a DNR rule regulating the use of firefighting foam. That veto enabled Tyco to continue discharging toxic PFAS into local surface waters.

09.07.2025 16:42 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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MEA Secures Legal Victory in Fight to Protect Wisconsinites from Toxic Pollution | Midwest Environmental Advocates For more than four years, MEA fought to make sure Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce didn’t succeed in gutting a law that keeps Wisconsinites safe from exposure to toxic contamination. Our legal fight...

For more than four years, Midwest Environmental Advocates has been fighting to make sure Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce doesn’t succeed in gutting a bedrock environmental protection called the Spills Law. Our legal fight went all the way to the State Supreme Court, and today we won!

24.06.2025 16:28 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
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Youth Climate Activists Sue Trump Administration Over Executive Orders

“I’m not suing because I want to. I’m suing because I have to. My health, my future, and my right to speak the truth are all on the line,” said Eva Lighthiser, age 19.

29.05.2025 15:43 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Bad River tribe prepares to challenge Army Corps of Engineers’ Line 5 reroute permit • Wisconsin Examiner The Bad River Band will argue this week against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issuing a permit to reroute the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline.

Today and tomorrow, the Bad River Band and its attorneys are presenting to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers their finding that the proposed Line 5 reroute threatens the Tribe's water quality and therefore violates the Clean Water Act. wisconsinexaminer.com/2025/05/13/b...

13.05.2025 14:45 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Groups ask for regulation of local power plant Several organizations are asking the DNR to monitor air quality near Alliant Energy's Riverside Energy Center in the Town of Beloit.

Midwest Environmental Advocates is proud to represent four community groups taking action to improve air quality in Beloit. We are calling on state regulators to deny a permit for a controversial gas plant expansion and to step up air pollution monitoring in the area.

07.05.2025 15:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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How cuts impacting a federal climate report could affect Wisconsin’s disaster preparedness “Thermometers don’t care who’s in office,” said Dan Vimont, a professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “By undercutting our ability to monitor and assess t...

What is the Trump administration telling young people by cutting climate research? It is saying: not only won’t we protect your future by addressing climate—we won’t even give you the tools to understand and adapt to the future that is ahead.

17.04.2025 14:17 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Trump’s New Way to Kill Regulations: Because I Say So The president is trying new shortcuts to eliminate energy and environmental rules, but legal experts say the efforts could face high hurdles.

“On its face, all of this is totally illegal. Either the real lawyers have left the building or they just don’t care,” said Jody Freeman, the director of the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program.

11.04.2025 20:03 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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A city responding to a lead crisis in schools reached out to the CDC for help. The agency’s lead experts were just fired | CNN A CDC team helping respond to a lead crisis in Milwaukee schools was cut as part of a widespread layoffs at federal health agencies this week.

The CDC lost roughly 2,500 workers on Tuesday, including everyone who worked for the Lead Poisoning Prevention and Surveillance Branch in the agency’s National Center for Environmental Health. “We no longer have lead experts,” said one CDC employee.

03.04.2025 21:32 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Four months after Enbridge oil spill, wary Jefferson County residents still want more answers The Line 6 spill has raised concerns about when the public should be notified of a spill, as well as why the initial report was so inaccurate.

Local residents are demanding more transparency from Enbridge about the Line 6 oil spill and why the company's initial report was so wildly inaccurate. Enbridge reported a two-gallon spill to the DNR on Nov. 11, only to revise the number to almost 70,000 gallons in December.

26.03.2025 17:37 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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The User-Pay Myth: We ALL Pay for Our Roads, Not Just Drivers It’s time we think harder about what it is we're paying for, for whom and why, and how we pay for it.

"We need to acknowledge the truth behind the public investment in our transportation system to ensure that it is working for the entire public, not just the driving public. Not everyone can or desires to drive—we need to invest in a system that will provide mobility options for all."

18.03.2025 21:30 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Legal win! Judge orders pause on Line 5 pipeline construction to prevent "significant adverse impacts to the environment" | Midwest Environmental Advocates A stay on all Line 5 pipeline-related construction activities will remain in effect while our legal challenge is pending.

An order issued by Judge Angela Chaput Foy prevents Enbridge from moving forward with any construction-related activities while our legal action is pending.

03.03.2025 17:28 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Wisconsin PFAS cleanup rules: Governor, Legislature spar Competing proposals would protect “innocent landowners” — those who didn’t knowingly cause pollution — from liability under the spills law.

There is a real, human cost to this delay. Thousands of Wisconsin families can't drink the water from their taps because it's polluted with PFAS. They deserve better than this.

28.02.2025 15:22 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Staff who’ve been put on leave supported tribes and state and local governments in solving some of our most complex health problems. They provided assistance to vulnerable communities and made sure that the federal government served everyone in our country.

24.02.2025 16:17 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Environmental justice isn't just a policy—it’s a human right | Midwest Environmental Advocates For more than twenty five years, Midwest Environmental Advocates has worked to protect the rights of all Wisconsinites to a clean and healthy environment. Accomplishing this mission requires us to con...

The actions of the current administration are deeply troubling. They also serve as a reminder of why our work is more vital than ever.

21.02.2025 21:59 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Two exciting opportunities! SDRI advances research and dialogue on state-level democracy, government institutions and public law.

17.02.2025 18:24 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Trump’s push for ‘efficiency’ may destroy the EPA. What does that mean for you? Current and former EPA staff say millions of Americans could lose access to clean air and water.

"You take for granted that you can drink the water out of your faucet. You can do that because of the EPA."

13.02.2025 15:44 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Wausau files federal lawsuit over PFAS contamination, citing long-term environmental and health risks - Wausau Pilot & Review By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review Wausau in January initiated a comprehensive legal battle against multiple corporations doing business in

“The business community should support our work to provide safe water to residents...I’d be far more concerned about what it says about Wausau if we make ratepayers absorb the cost of complying with water standards while letting polluters off the hook." -City Council President Lisa Rasmussen

12.02.2025 16:00 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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‘Canary in a Coal Mine’: Data Scientists Restore a Climate Justice Tool Taken Down by Trump - Inside Climate News As one of its first acts, the Trump administration removed the online data tool used to allocate money to environmental justice communities. In two days, a coalition of data scientists had restored it...

Eliminating public access to environmental health information will have serious consequences for communities that are disproportionately impacted by pollution and climate change.

10.02.2025 20:01 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0