Enviro Heroes: Meet This Year's Prestigious Goldman Prize Winners

Photo Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

SAN FRANCISCO, California, April 11, 2011 (ENS) - The Goldman Environmental Foundation has announced the six recipients of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize, grassroots leaders who are taking on some of the most challenging environmental problems affecting local communities and the planet.

The prize recipients are dealing with issues surrounding factory livestock farming in the United States, shark finning in Costa Rica, the protection of wilderness in Poland, sustainable agriculture in Cuba, conservation that focuses on human rights in Swaziland and wild elephant conservation in Cambodia.

"I am motivated and inspired by the courage of these leaders," said Goldman Prize founder Richard Goldman. "Their commitment to fighting for a better future illustrates the perseverance of the grassroots environmental movement around the world."

The Goldman Environmental Prize, now in its 21st year, is awarded annually to grassroots environmental heroes from each of the world's six inhabited continental regions and is the largest award of its kind with an individual cash prize of $150,000.

The winners will be awarded the Prize at an invitation-only ceremony this evening at the San Francisco Opera House. They also will be honored at a smaller ceremony on Wednesday at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

Among them will be Michigan family farmer Lynn Henning, who has exposed the polluting practices of concentrated animal feeding operations, CAFOs, gaining the attention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and prompting state regulators to issue hundreds of citations for water quality violations.

With her husband, Henning farms 300 acres of corn and soybeans in Lenawee County within 10 miles of 12 CAFO facilities. Her mother-in-law and father-in-law live within 1,000 feet of a CAFO operation, and have both been diagnosed with hydrogen sulfide poisoning.

In 2000, Henning and other concerned neighbors formed Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan to bring the CAFOs to justice. Henning gathered information about CAFO pollution spills, driving a 125-mile circuit several times a week to track CAFO operations and take water samples.

She joined forces with the Sierra Club's Michigan Chapter as a volunteer Water Sentinel in 2001, and became a staff member in 2005. Working with a volunteer pilot and a photographer, Henning used satellite imagery and GPS coordinates to document polluted areas and waterways.

Henning and ECCSCM developed a body of data on CAFO operations beyond that of Michigan's own regulatory agencies. She brought her data and tools to state regulators, sharing her monitoring techniques and aerial documentation, as well as her findings on CAFO pollution. As a result, the state Department of Environmental Quality levied hundreds of citations against Michigan CAFOs for environmental violations.

In 2008, for the first time, the state agency denied a permit to a proposed CAFO facility, based largely on Henning's findings and recommendations of the local citizens group fighting the proposal. While a new permit was later granted, the community is appealing with Henning's support. Region 5 of the EPA, which serves Midwestern states, has incorporated Henning's techniques into its own CAFO investigations.

Henning has helped form a statewide committee of representatives of the state departments of agriculture and health, the DEQ and Michigan citizens groups charged with conducting a first assessment of the environmental impacts of CAFOs on public health.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson recently said her agency will more strictly enforce the Clean Water Act rules regulating CAFO waste.