Environmentalists, congressional staffers and Obama administration officials paid tribute yesterday to the late Earthjustice lawyer Joan Mulhern at a Washington, D.C., memorial service.

Mulhern, who died last month after a long illness, was praised as one of the country's most aggressive defenders of the Clean Water Act and a steadfast foe of mountaintop-removal coal mining (E&ENews PM, Dec. 19, 2012). She was described as willing to battle Republicans and Democrats alike.

"She was a protector of mountains, a protector of our watersheds and the people who inhabit them," U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said at last night's memorial service at the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Joan Mulhern was one of the nation's top clean water advocates. Photo courtesy of Earthjustice.org.

"I can tell you she was a fierce adversary," Jackson said to laughter. "And people forgave all of her fierceness because it was genuine because in this town it was hard to find."

Joe Lovett, executive director of Appalachian Mountain Advocates, which sues coal companies to force compliance, said Mulhern was the one advocate who helped him navigate the halls of Congress in lobbying against mountaintop removal when the issue was not as controversial as it is now.

Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen said Mulhern took on the Clinton administration and powerful West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd (D) against what he called the first pro-mountaintop removal spending bill rider. Mulhern lobbied to have it stripped.

"In one corner, the president, the president's priorities, the budget, Senator Byrd, and standing behind them the coal industry," Van Noppen remembered. "In the other corner, Joan and the troops she could mobilize. I don't think it was a fair fight myself."

Van Noppen said, "Earthjustice has lost our first mountain hero, and our hearts are broken."

Years later, early during the Obama administration, Mulhern didn't think the Council on Environmental Quality was paying enough attention to her concerns about mountaintop removal. So she led a campaign that flooded the administration with emails.

"Joan ended up spending a few weeks in Siberia," recalled Sierra Club's environmental quality director, Ed Hopkins. "But I think her conclusion was that it was very helpful to get the attention of the administration."

Before moving to Earthjustice, Mulhern was an advocate for the group Public Citizen, where she fought the tobacco industry. "Of course, Joan won," said Joan Claybrook, the group's former president and current board member.

"She was such a public-interest lobbyist," Claybrook added. "She was tough, unrelenting, determined, everything you want and need in an advocate."

A lifelong Red Sox fan, Mulhern graduated from the University of Vermont and had a law degree from Georgetown University, where she fought for student loan forgiveness. She also worked for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.

"I don't think I have met anybody who had the reverence for the Clean Water Act that Joan had," Hopkins said. "I can't think of what we would have done had Joan not been here to fight those clean water riders that show up so predictably."

Van Noppen said, "Wherever a wetland is being saved from development, Joan is there. Wherever a polluted stream that used to be a treasured swimming hole is restored and can be used again by that community, Joan is there. Wherever a mountain is protected from having its top literally blasted off, Joan is there."

Click here to go to Earthjustice's tribute page.