Our Mission: We all want clean air, clean water and open spaces. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way. That's the idea behind Environment Illinois. We protect Illinois’s air, water and open spaces. We speak out and take action at the local, state and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.

Clean Water For All

Clean water is essential to our lifestyle, our health and the survival of every living thing. But in Illinois, this vital resource is being degraded in several fundamental ways.

First, Illinois has one of the highest concentrations of factory farms in the United States. Also called CAFOs (“Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations”), factory farms and other agricultural operations are among our nation’s top sources of water pollution––responsible for impairing thousands of Illinois lakes and streams. Illinois maintains the worst record among Great Lakes states for preventing factory farm pollution, and environmental violations have been uncovered at more than half of inspected facilities.

Second, Illinois’s most widespread water-quality problem is nutrient (phosphorus and nitrogen) pollution, which renders water unsafe and bad-tasting, and fills lakes and streams with harmful algae and cyanobacteria. Phosphorus comes from factory farms and industrial agriculture, refineries, lawn fertilizers and sewage treatment plants, and impairs the vast majority of Illinois’s waters.

Third, DNA evidence suggests the presence of voracious invasive Asian carp at Lake Michigan’s doorstep—well past the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ electronic carp barrier, a virtual fish fence designed to stop them. In parts of the Illinois River, they already make up 90 percent of living biomass. Scientists fear potential ecological disaster, and disruption of the Great Lakes’ $7 billion fishing industry, if these giants colonize the Great Lakes. Environment Illinois urges legislators to:

• Amend the Livestock Management Facilities Act to reduce pollution by increasing environmental protections and opportunities for public participation in the siting of factory farms;
• Phase out lawn fertilizers containing phosphorus;and
• Take state-appropriate action to prevent Asian carp from colonizing the Great Lakes.

Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

Rates of asthma, diabetes, childhood cancers, infertility, and learning and behavioral disorders keep rising, but the federal law meant to protect our health and environment from toxic chemicals hasn’t changed in 33 years. That’s why state and local governments are taking their own actions to end the use of known toxic chemicals.

One such chemical is bisphenol-A (BPA). Although BPA is a hormone-mimicking toxic, it is used in most food can linings and hard clear plastic containers––including baby bottles––from which it leaches into food. The U.S. National Toxicology Program has found that Americans are routinely exposed to BPA at levels that caused harmful effects in animal studies, linking BPA to a litany of chronic health problems, including infertility, obesity, diabetes, neuro-behavioral problems and breast and prostate cancers.

That’s why Chicago, Canada and at least two states have already banned it. Unfortunately, BPA is just one toxic chemical in widespread use—there are many more. Envi- ronment Illinois urges legislators to:

• Eliminate BPA from food packaging, focusing first on our most vulnerable citizens––children; and
• Move beyond a “one-chemical-at-a-time” approach, toward a comprehensive chemical policy that encourages the use of safer alternatives, shifts the burden of proving chemicals’ safety from taxpayers to manufacturers, and prevents chemicals known to be hazardous from being used in the first place.

Solar Solutions for Illinois

Illinois is a leader . . . in dirty energy. Ninety-seven percent of our electricity comes from coal or nuclear plants. And while Illinois has made great strides in wind power, we’ve yet to harness perhaps our most promising resource: the sun.

Illinois has surprising solar potential—more than Germany or Japan, two of the world’s leading solar energy producers. But Illinois’s current installed solar generating capacity is just 3.3 megawatts. Twenty-seven individual California cities can generate more than that.

A confluence of economic factors, including significant reductions in the price of solar photovoltaic modules, has created a tremendous window of opportunity to advance solar power in the Midwest.

Eliminating policy barriers through the measures described below can ensure that Illinois becomes a regional leader in tomorrow’s energy industry. Environment Illinois urges legislators to:

• Amend our state’s Renewable Electricity Standard to accelerate adoption of solar in utilities’ power mix. Current law doesn’t require solar in the mix until 2016, but solar panels are affordable now;
• Raise Illinois’s net-metering cap on generating capacity to extend the economic benefits of solar power to Illinois’s commercial and industrial power users;
• Ensure property owners’ rights to install solar panels by specifying that condo and homeowner associations cannot restrict their use; and
• Enable municipalities to use property-assessed clean energy financing (PACE) to spur renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, including solar installations.

Protect Parks and Open Spaces

As Illinois’s population continues to grow, our need for more protected open spaces is becoming critical. Only 3.6 percent of Illinois’s land area is publicly owned for conservation and recreation—ranking Illinois last among Midwest states in protected open spaces.

The Open Spaces Land Acquisition and Development Fund (OSLAD) and Natural Areas Acquisition Fund (NAAF) are two important Illinois programs that fund critical species habitat and local parks. But in recent years, the Legislature has routinely raided these funds, diminishing the state’s ability to protect open spaces. Environment Illinois urges legislators to:

• Ensure that all real estate transfer tax revenues collected for the open space conservation programs (OSLAD & NAAF) are fully allocated and used for that purpose.