The organization describes its mission: "Using the creative power of science, law, and collective action, we protect and restore our rivers, return healthy soils and diverse wildlife to our lands, and transform how we care for the earth and for each other.

Initially organized to stop a dam project by the United States Army Corps of Engineers on the Sangamon River near Decatur, Illinois.

The dam was opposed because the resulting reservoir would have flooded large parts of Allerton Park and adjacent lands.

The effort to stop that project, that would have created the Oakley Reservoir, was ultimately successful and it was federally deauthorized in 1985.

In May 2018, PRN, represented by Earthjustice, sued the company Dynegy over violations of the Clean Water Act resulting from coal ash piles along the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River.