An eight year battle against a central Illinois strip mine ends in victory for the community of Canton and Orion township. An arm of Springfield Coal Company asked the Department of Natural Resources to terminate their permit for their North Canton Mine before a court hearing challenging errors in permit approval.
"The naysayers told us we couldn't fight city hall and the mine. They have more money. But we stayed the course," said Brenda Dilts, Chair of Canton Area Citizens for Environmental Issues.
The permit challenge hinged on the mine's potential impact to streams and Canton Lake, which supplies water to roughly 20,000 people, but opposition rallied around many ways the community would be harmed, including noise, water well contamination, heavy truck traffic, and airborne pollutants. Only a road and fence would have separated the mine from residents in Orion township, Dilts said. "Now people are free to enjoy their country living and well water."
Dilts wrote a letter to the editor in 2006 after hearing a presentation by the company and the Department of Natural Resources at a city council meeting. "I came home from vacation to voicemails messages full of support for my letter. Only one message was negative. We decided to start having meetings. Twelve people came at first to write letters. Then we had 25 and soon we outgrew our meeting space at the library. We organized until we became a legitimate source of pain for the company."
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