People Not Polluters Webinar [Virtual] Register

Date and Time:
Mon, Oct 27, 2025; 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM  (Central)

Organized By: North Star Chapter

Location: Virtual

Event Organizers:
Mary Blitzer
   mary.blitzer@sierraclub.org

Join People Not Polluters, a group of 19 Minnesota environmental organizations, for a webinar to learn why and how state agencies must change and start enforcing our laws to protect Minnesotans and our land, water, air and climate. When you register for the webinar, you will get sent the zoom link. 

By now, we know that the federal administration is coming for our basic protections. The list goes on and on, and even includes EPA rollbacks of drinking water standards. With all the harm happening, it can be hard to know what to do. But we can act. 

We need to act in all our areas of influence. Here in Minnesota we can pressure Governor Walz to direct our state agencies to rigorously enforce existing environmental laws. 

Our state agencies have the power to protect us – if - they enforce our existing environmental laws. Unfortunately, right now they are falling short too often. It is the job agencies like the DNR and Minnesota Pollution Control to use existing laws to protect us from corporate polluters. Today, though, even when laws are strong, these state agencies are failing us more and more often, because they are captured by the very polluting industries they are charged with regulating. A problem we call “polluter capture”.  

Join us for a webinar to hear from the experts in three case studies on Polluter Capture: 

• Joe Vital, Interim Executive Director with the East Philips Neighborhood Institute, will present about the Smith Foundry which was violating their air permit and sending asthma and cancer causing fine particulate pollutants into the air in Minneapolis. 
• Paul J. Wotzka, a private well owner in SE MN and a founding member of the Minnesota Well Owners Organization (MNWOO), will speak on nitrates in the drinking water in SE MN caused by agriculture pollution and the lack of effective regulation by the state agencies.
• Peter Wagenius, Legislative and Political Director of the Sierra Club North Star Chapter, will speak about how trash and wood burning industries have captured the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to the extent that the MPCA is now arguing in favor of not applying the carbon free standard to these carbon emitting industries. 

Then we will discuss next steps and how you can help. 

Learn more about polluter capture at: peoplenotpolluters.com.