Big Turnout at Wausau’s First-Ever Environmental Health Summit

 

Individuals, environmental groups, and elected officials packed the room at the Midwest Environmental Summit in Wausau’s Jefferson Street Inn on Saturday. Attendees from Wausau to Madison to Door County came to listen to state and nationally renowned speakers and groups. Because Citizens for a Clean Wausau, the host of the event, received a grant to put together the regional summit, the public paid absolutely nothing to attend the day-long event and came out in droves.

Some featured speakers at the event had actually made national and international headlines on pollution matters, and for likely the first time in Wausau history, a variety of prominent figures from environmental health science, medicine, law, and activism all spoke at the same Wausau event. Speakers ranged from the toxicologist at Love Canal who recently served on an expert panel in East Palestine, Ohio, to one of the most well-known environmental activists in the Midwest whose Chicago group members participated in a near month-long hunger strike to fend off a major polluter.