“Whistleblowers play a vital role in protecting the Earth by exposing violations of environmental laws. Every year, brave individuals risk their careers to bring light to misconduct that threatens our planet. On Earth Day, it is important to celebrate these whistleblowers.
In March, WNN reported on the story of Walter Loewen, an environmental analyst with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) who blew the whistle on the Converse County, Wyoming oil and gas project and is facing termination. According to nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Loewen “repeatedly stressed to the BLM’s leadership” that the project would put in danger the nesting sites of several species of birds. However, after he blew the whistle, he “was removed from all further environmental work on that or any other projects and sidelined” into doing essentially busywork tasks, according to PEER. As of publishing this article, Loewen is still assigned to these projects, but his disclosures have raised awareness about the alleged issues involved in the oil and gas project.”
