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CHAD PREGRACKE: CLEANING UP THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER ONE PIECE AT A TIME

 

By Frosty Wooldridge
June
16, 2014
NewsWithViews.com

Chad Pregracke lives on a barge. His life's work is to clean up the Mississippi River

Photography by Gear Junkie

The Mississippi River sweeps millions of bottles, cans, tires, oil, plastic bags and containers, along with junk of every description, and chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico 24/7. From Minnesota, where it starts as a six-foot-wide, 15-inches-deep stream, it travels 2,552 miles and drops 1,772 feet through nine states until it rushes into the ocean. At its mouth, the Mississippi River creates a 10,000-mile "dead zone" where most vertebrate marine creatures cannot live because toxic waters contaminate their habitat.

How do I know? Over 15 years ago, my friend Gary and I canoed the Mississippi River, beginning at its humble source in Lake Itasca, Minnesota. At first, perfect beauty greeted us until we hit the first homes and towns along the river. From there, bottles, cans, plastic bags, plastic containers, cars, sofas, tires, machinery, paper, cups, used diapers and hundreds of other pieces of trash passed by my eyes. We carried two large plastic trash bags and filled them every day. We dumped them at trashcans in the small towns we passed along the way.

At the end, I wrote a commentary asking the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press to engage civic leaders, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, high schools, Rotary and Lions clubs to form teams to clean up Old Man River. I asked them to consider a 10-cent deposit-return law for all soda pop, beer and liqueur bottles like Michigan's successful law.

The editors and publishers of both papers refused to publish my commentary. Hard fact: 70 percent of Americans refuse to recycle anything. A large percentage of them toss anything, anywhere, at any time. McDonald's and Pizza Hut customers throw the most trash out their car windows. Plastic water bottles, beer and soda containers litter the landscape by the trillions!

Last week, my preacher spoke about the Herculean efforts of Chad Pregracke on his quest to clean up the Mississippi River one piece of trash at a time. Americans along the river toss their debris one piece at a time and Pregracke intends to pick it up "one piece at a time." Pregracke ran into the same roadblocks with his efforts to engage government and civic clubs: they ignored him.

"At the age of 17, he started making calls to government agencies to notify them of the problem, assuming someone would take care of it. Year after year passed by and the problem only worsened. In 1997 Chad decided that, if no one else was going to clean up the river, he would."

Visit his website: www.LivingLandsandWaters.org

Since 1998, Chad engaged 60,000 volunteers to retrieve 6,000,000 (million) pounds of trash of every description. He expanded his work to the Ohio and other rivers.

On his website: "Chad's vision, charisma, non-stop work ethic and natural leadership garnered him an abundance of awards and honors over the years. Most notably, Chad was the recipient of the Jefferson Award for Public Service, America's version of the Nobel Prize, in June 2002. Chad accepted this award in the United States Supreme Court in Washington D.C. with other award recipients: Rudolph Giuliani, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Lilly Tartikoff."

Chad's teams picked up 13 football fields worth of one-foot thick Styrofoam; 8,800 feet of barge cables; 1,095 chairs; 19,700 balls; 63 250-gallon drums; 83,900 bags of trash; 5,800 55-gallon drums and thousands of other articles tossed by mindless Americans. The list runs down the page like a ticker-tape parade of embarrassment.

Chad Pregracke authored: From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers. To purchase a copy of the book, please call the office at (309) 496-9848.

This brings up the most important point: we Americans must begin to clean up our country "upstream" by changing ourselves from a "throw-away" society to a "recycling-return" society. All the cleanups in the world won't solve the core problem: millions of Americans tossing their containers and trash.

We need to help Chad expand his work into the "deposit-return" container laws like the State of Michigan. We need to transform from plastic bags use to cotton bag use. It's evident that millions of Americans don't care where they toss their trash. Economic incentives change that behavior very effectively. Michigan's rivers, lakes and roadways remain pristine because an army of kids scours the landscape for 10-cent return containers.

If you're the kind of person who cares about North America's environment and beauty, sign on with Chad Pregracke's team. Start your own team in your own city or state. Expand your powers by forming groups that create change. Model your work after Chad's work. He will help you.

Chad Pregracke has made it his life's work to clean up the Mississippi River and other American waterways.

Photography by Good News Network

Finally, where you engage your heart, you infuse your life with energy, purpose and passion. Follow Chad's lead and become a leader in your state, city and community. Empower him with money or volunteer hours. Clean up your rivers, lakes and streams. Additionally, work for 10 cent deposit return laws that create economic incentives for recycling cans, bottles and plastic containers. As a civilization, we need to conserve, recycle and reuse to save our resources, our energy and our environment. Your efforts will give the Mighty Mississippi a chance to run clean again along with all the other rivers in America. In the process, you will preserve Tom Sawyer, Jim and Huckleberry Finn's legacy.


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"Rivers flow not past, but through us; tingling, vibrating, exciting every cell and fiber in our bodies, making them sing and glide."~~ John Muir

[Join me, Frosty Wooldridge, with Dave Chaffin, host of the Morning Zone at 650 AM, www.KGAB.com, Cheyenne, Wyoming every Monday 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., as we discuss my latest commentaries on www.NewsWithViews.com about issues facing America. You may stream the show on your computer. You may call in at: 1-888-503-6500.]

© 2014 Frosty Wooldridge - All Rights Reserved

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Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents and six times across the United States in the past 30 years. His published books include: "HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS"; “STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE”; “IMMIGRATION’S UNARMED INVASION: DEADLY CONSEQUENCES”; “MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURE TO ALASKA: INTO THE WIND—A TEEN NOVEL”; “BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD: TIRE TRACKS FOR YOUR IMAGINATION”; “AN EXTREME ENCOUNTER: ANTARCTICA.” His next book: “TILTING THE STATUE OF LIBERTY INTO A SWAMP.” He lives in Denver, Colorado.

His latest book. ‘IMMIGRATION’S UNARMED INVASION—DEADLY CONSEQUENCES.’

Website: www.FrostyWooldridge.com

E:Mail: frostyw@juno.com


 

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This brings up the most important point: we Americans must begin to clean up our country "upstream" by changing ourselves from a "throw-away" society to a "recycling-return" society. All the cleanups in the world won't solve the core problem: millions of Americans tossing their containers and trash.