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Midwest Environmental Advocates

Contact
Andrew Hanson
551 W. Main Street
Suite 200
Madison, WI 53703
ahanson@midwestadvocates.org
(608) 251-5047

On the Web: www.midwestadvocates.org

Activity: Clean Water Program

Geographic location: Wisconsin

Brief activity description: Midwest Environmental Advocates actively pushes for full implementation of the Clean Water Act in Wisconsin's Upper Mississippi River Basin. We monitor water pollution discharge permits, advocate for protective water quality standards, file citizen suits to enforce discharge permits, challenge discharge permits where they are too weak to protect water quality, and advocate for polluted runoff controls on both urban and rual landscapes.

Primary goals or focus:

• Nutrient reduction
• Sediment reduction
• Agricultural landscape change
• Water quality improvement
• Policy development
• Nutrient standards development/implementation
• Organizing/networking/coordinating

Projected outcomes/impacts, if known: Midwest Environmental Advocates seeks to remove excess nutrients and sediments from the Upper Mississippi River Basin through citizen suits, discharge permit challenges, and implementation of polluted runoff controls.

Activity type:

• Policy
• Implementation
• Regulatory

Scale of activity:

• Community-level
• Watershed
• County
• State

Lead organization(s)/organizer(s): Betsy Lawton, Staff Attorney; Laura O'Flanagan, Staff Attorney

Timeline/duration: 3 years
Projected or real startup time: Jan. 1, 2006
Projected ending time or goal deadline: Dec. 31, 2009

Funding sources:

• Foundations
• Individual donors
• Attorneys fees from citizen suits

Follow-up activities that will/might result from this activity: Water quality criteria development for nutrients in Wisconsin, water quality based effluent limits for nutrients in discharge permits, increased used of total maximum daily loads for nutrients to control nutrient discharges, and greater awareness of Wisconsin's role in Mississippi River nutrient pollution.

Publications