Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of Freshwater FutureThe Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News is the newsletter of Freshwater Future, published four times per year. The News is intended to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas among citizens and organizations working to protect aquatic habitats in the Great Lakes Basin. Volume 16, Number 2 • Summer 2008 Congratulations to our 2008 Citizen Advocate Award WinnersIn appreciation of the critical role citizen advocates play in preserving aquatic habitat in the Great Lakes Basin, we recognize the outstanding service to the community of April Fideli and Janet May with the 2008 Citizen Advocate of the Year Award. April Fideli is a young mother of two who has devoted incredible time and energy into her position as president of Residents for Responsible Government. Through her work, she has gained ommand of a great reservoir of knowledge about the toxic waste industry and her community. "We in the environmental community in western New York are so proud of April Fideli, and agree that she deserves the award. She is an inspiration to us because of her dedication and effective work to protect Lake Ontario from toxic contamination" said Charles Lamb, Executive Committee of the Niagara Group of the Sierra Club. Janet May of Pesticide Free Ontario has been the driving force behind the move to ban lawn pesticides in Canada. She and a group of housewives in Hudson, Quebec began as a concerned grassroots group that took their issue all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and won! As a result, municipalities across Ontario have the right to pass a by-law banning pesticides in their community. The Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty has promised to introduce a province-wide ban this spring. A promise that Janet May's group will no doubt refuse to let him forget. Janet is a model for all grassroots environmentalists - enthusiastic, smart, dynamic, articulate, thorough, creative, and doesn't give up! She is an inspiration that those of us fighting for our beautiful and threatened places so badly need. |
Freshwater Future builds effective community-based citizen action to protect and restore the water quality of the Great Lakes basin. We work toward this goal by providing financial assistance, communications and networking assistance and technical assistance to citizens and grassroots watershed groups throughout the Great Lakes basin. Through these efforts we work with over 1,800 grassroots watershed groups and citizens to protect and restore the rivers, lakes and wetlands in their communities. Freshwater Future is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. For more information, please contact: info@freshwaterfuture.org |