Heroes of Conservation: 2008 Finalist

Chad Pregracke, The Garbage Man
President of Living Lands & Waters, East Moline, Ill.

Growing up fishing, diving for mussel shells, and trapping muskrats in the Mississippi River, Chad Pregracke saw the widespread pollution in the river. In 1998, he formed the nonprofit group Living Lands & Waters, with the goal to clean a 435-mile stretch of the Mississippi. The group has gone on to remove over 5 million pounds of garbage from the Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio, and other rivers in nine states.

My thought was to set my sights high, work hard, and let nothing be a failure, so I started out with a big goal. I knew I wanted to clean a full 435-mile stretch, but I didn't know how long it would take. The first year, I got a small donation and set out on a boat by myself. A lot of times, I thought this wasn't going to work, but I just kept moving forward and tried to stay positive. I was 22 and right out of college. Now Living Lands & Waters has 13 full-time employees. We have four barges and eight of us work full-time on those barges. We're out there nine months out of the year. I've only been home four days since February. It's hard work, but I'm not complaining.

Each year, we try to grow. I saw an ADOPT A HIGHWAY sign and thought, If people can adopt a mile of highway to keep clean, why not a mile of the Mississippi? We now have over 200 miles of the Mississippi River adopted, and we just started the same program on the Illinois River.

People always assume we see so much wildlife. We don't. I started noticing that there really wasn't a lot of diversity in the trees in the area. So, we started a nursery and have a goal to plant a million native trees along the banks of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois Rivers. Without diverse mast, there won't be diverse wildlife. Now, this year, I've started working to reestablish Boston Bay in Illinois. The bay has been polluted with sediment and runoff, and we're spearheading a coalition of groups and agencies to restore it. When you spend so much time on the river, you see so much work left to be done. The past 11 years have been powerful. I don't know what I'll be doing in 20 years, but I feel like I'm just getting started.

See Previous Heroes from:

Finalists Gale Dupree John Walther Bob Capron Nancy Craft Gordon and Terri Southwick Les Monostory Previous Months November September August July June May April March February	Finalists Howard Kern William Edwards Derek Fong Billy Sandifer Mark Taylor Jon Hillmer Previous Months November September August July June May April March February	Finalists Hod Kosman Chad Pregracke Andy Batcho Jim Tripp and Sandra Millan-Tripp Dale Rollins Charles Lane Previous Months November September August July June May April March February	Finalists Brian Maguire Joan Vernon Philip Babe Harlan Kredit Chris Scalley Robert Miles Previous Months November September August July June May April March February
Finalists Paul Morrow Jim Cummins Jeff Olson Ronnie Luster Steve Simmons Chris Tompkins Previous Months September August July June May April March February January