Midwest Environmental Advocates Creates Environmental-Justice Award

MEA’s Water Justice Panel included (from left) Curt Meine, a senior fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation; Dean Hoegger, president and executive director of Clean Water Action Council of Northeast Wisconsin; Kimberlee Wright, MEA’s executive director, as the panel leader; Steve Eatough, vice president of the Door County Environmental Council; Katie Krouse, program manager at The Ridges Sanctuary; and Erin Hanson, head of the Door County Soil and Water Conservation Department.

Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA, midwestadvocates.org) has named a new environmental-justice award in honor of Bill Iwen, a longtime clean-water advocate in the northeast Wisconsin. The creation of the award was announced at a 20th-anniversary event hosted by Midwest Environmental Advocates recently at the Kress Pavilion in Egg Harbor. The event’s theme was Water Justice: Equity, Resilience and the Future of the Great Lakes, and it featured a panel of speakers.

The Bill Iwen Community and Environmental Justice Award recognizes local leaders who make a lasting difference in Wisconsin by building community and advocating for the rights of all citizens to a clean environment. 

The award’s first recipient is Charolette Baierl, a young woman who was inspired by Iwen’s advocacy and who continues his legacy of fighting for citizens’ rights to clean water in Kewaunee County. 

As Wisconsin’s only nonprofit environmental law center, Midwest Environmental Advocates works to defend public rights, protect natural resources and ensure transparency and accountability in government. For 20 years, MEA has provided affordable legal services to thousands of citizens around the state, including residents of Kewaunee and Door counties, who are facing environmental threats.