Meet MCEA's newest Staff Attorney, Abigail Hencheck

One of MCEA’s greatest superpowers over the last half century is our deep bench of some of the brightest and most innovative environmental lawyers in the state. Their legal prowess has helped keep PolyMet’s floundering sulfide mining proposal at bay, hamstrung efforts to build new gas plants amid the accelerating climate crisis, and compelled state agencies to finally take action to better protect drinking water from nitrate pollution. The list of cases they are asked to spearhead or join to protect Minnesotans and our resources grows everyday, which is why we are always looking for new legal talent to add to our team. We're thrilled to bring Abigail Hencheck on board, she brings a powerful perspective to our work. 

1. Abigail’s background is in human and civil rights. Before joining MCEA she worked as an attorney for Legal Aid and Gender Justice. 
2. She brings a strong lens on the intersection of human rights and environmental issues to her work at MCEA. “One of the biggest consequences of climate change is a restriction of resources, and allocating who gets those resources and who doesn’t becomes a human rights issue that will only get more challenging as we have less and less clean water, land and food.”
3. Her current caseload at MCEA is split between our Healthy Communities and Climate & Energy programs. One of her big cases involves MCEA’s work to help the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) shut down the toxic Smith Foundry in their neighborhood, which has been overloaded by air pollution from a concentration of industry in the area for far too long. 
4. She sees the stewardship of Minnesota’s water as becoming an important environmental human rights issue in our future, particularly with future climate migration driving more people to our state. 
5. Abigail got her law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School
6. She is a mother of two who lives with her family on a hobby farm near North Branch, Minnesota. She’d much rather be playing video or board games than collecting eggs from their hens, though. “ We live in the golden age of board games … I have shelves and shelves of them.” A couple of her recommendations: Everdell, Cascadia and Tang Garden.