03
Jun
2003
In the classroom of the 42-foot-long barge/houseboat that serves as the operations center of Living Lands & Waters, the 40 or so teachers assembled in the Quad Cities last Friday were naturally disappointed when told at the beginning of the day that Chad Pregracke would not be joining them just yet.
"Nothing is the same without Chad," said Bryan Hopkins of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, who led the workshop, the last of 10 held last month starting in St. Louis.
Pregracke is the dynamo leader of Living Lands & Waters, the man known around the world as the guy who pulls trash - tons of it - from rivers each year. For the past six years, Pregracke has organized and led volunteer-based river cleanups around the United States (but particularly on the Mississippi River) that have collected more than 800 tons of garbage, from tires to vehicles to home appliances, and recycled most of it.
"The guy is a madman," said one of his staff members in a video shown to the teachers.
"If you could bottle whatever's powering that boy, it'd be great, but it'd probably be illegal in 19 states," said Larry Daily, president of the Bettendorf-based Alter Barge Line, during his presentation to the teachers.
When Pregracke did join the group late in the morning, he was his normal bundle of energy. But he's trying - somewhat - to deflect attention.
"A lot of the focus is on me," said Pregracke, who's been featured in magazines such as People, Biography, and Time. "But it's not about me."
He was talking about his river-cleanup efforts, but then he addressed the teachers: "This is about you," he said.
The problem for Pregracke is that for as long as he's involved with it, Living Lands & Waters will always be about him. He's such an energetic, dynamic, and flaky force that it's hard to not be charmed by him.
This is the guy who, somewhat famously, went to Alcoa because of its place in the phone book, demanded to talk to the top guy, and ended up with $10,000.
This is a guy whose brain can barely keep up with his words, such as when he told the teachers that his group's money "strictly pretty much for the most part" comes from companies and individuals rather than government. (Living Lands & Waters is now a $500,000-a-year operation.)
This is a guy whose spiels include sound effects, broad gestures, and questions to himself ("So, where'm I goin' with this?").
In other words, Pregracke is an attention magnet, and he seems to like it. When a photographer told Pregracke that he wanted him to turn a certain way, the Mississippi Trash Man mugged furiously.
For all these reasons, the education workshops last month were an ideal next step for Pregracke and his organization. Anything associated with Living Lands & Waters is going to have Pregracke all over it, but if he can get teachers excited about the river - and if they in turn can get their students and fellow educators pumped - Pregracke's reach extends much further. The goal is to give teachers information and resources that they can incorporate into their curricula.
Just as importantly, while Living Lands & Waters' focus is narrow - "I'm talking about something simple, and that's trash," Pregracke said - these educational workshops are much broader. They could represent the first step of leveraging Pregracke's name and personality to transform the organization into something bigger.
Teachers learned about different facets of the environment, history, and commerce during the one-day workshops and talked with a wide variety of experts, from fishermen to barge executives to representatives of federal agencies.
Living Lands & Waters considers the workshops a success, even though only the two Davenport workshops were full. The organization recognizes that it's naturally going to get a lot more response near the Quad Cities, where a much larger portion of the population knows about East Moline native Pregracke.
Pregracke is pledging to do similar workshops in the future, which is a little odd considering that he told the assembled teachers, "My deal isn't education."
That's one reason he hired education coordinator Tammy Becker to organize the workshops, and why his role in them is more ceremonial than educational. The story of how Becker joined the Living Lands & Waters team is instructive in its Biblical overtones; Pregracke is by no means a messiah, but he clearly has magic in him, the ability to draw people to him and get them to join his crusade. Becker met Pregracke six years ago and asked him for a job when she saw him again in November. His response: "Come on board, but we leave tomorrow."
Friday's workshop was hampered a bit by wind, early rain, and the threat of continued bad weather. "You're not going to get the mud-on-your-boots flavor," Hopkins said.
The workshop was nonetheless the antithesis of textbook learning. The session was held on the Living Lands & Waters boat - where as many as five staff members live and work - and featured excursions that reinforced what speakers were saying. The floating classroom visited the Milan Bottoms - one of the largest contiguous bottomland forests on the upper Mississippi River - and teachers talked to commercial fishermen who pulled up beside the houseboat, the president of a barge company, and representatives of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers. Teachers learned about the lock-and-dam system and went through a lock.
They learned, for example, that waterways carry 15 percent of the country's cargo but use only 3 percent of its transportation energy. "We're extremely efficient, and that's our niche," said Alter Barge President Daily. They used roasting pans, foil, soda cans, water, cocoa powder, and food coloring to mimic watersheds and the effects of different types of pollution.
Hopkins, who was a teacher for seven years, also gave the teachers a 250-page education guide that includes reference materials and hands-on activities for students. "I'd like you to think of the river as a teaching tool," Hopkins said.
Although transportation and commerce were discussed during the workshop, the environment was a focus. And of course, everything eventually affects or is affected by the well-being of the river. The way the Mississippi is manipulated for transportation can have a major impact on habitats, and the health of the river can make or break fishermen. The way our communities develop and how we treat our lawns have repercussions in terms of pollution and runoff. And because many communities, including the Quad Cities, get their drinking water from the Mississippi, pollution is a major concern.
Yet Pregracke is adamant that he doesn't consider himself an environmentalist; he thinks the label divisive. "All I want to be known as is a hard-working American," he said.
Still, his organization plans to plant 4,000 trees this year, another sign that Living Lands & Waters is extending its reach. "Four thousand trees is small," Pregracke said, "but six years ago so was my john boat."
For more information on Living Lands & Waters, including a schedule of cleanups, visit (http://www.cleanrivers.com). Quad Cities cleanups are scheduled for August 9 and 16.
"Nothing is the same without Chad," said Bryan Hopkins of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, who led the workshop, the last of 10 held last month starting in St. Louis.
Pregracke is the dynamo leader of Living Lands & Waters, the man known around the world as the guy who pulls trash - tons of it - from rivers each year. For the past six years, Pregracke has organized and led volunteer-based river cleanups around the United States (but particularly on the Mississippi River) that have collected more than 800 tons of garbage, from tires to vehicles to home appliances, and recycled most of it.
"The guy is a madman," said one of his staff members in a video shown to the teachers.
"If you could bottle whatever's powering that boy, it'd be great, but it'd probably be illegal in 19 states," said Larry Daily, president of the Bettendorf-based Alter Barge Line, during his presentation to the teachers.
When Pregracke did join the group late in the morning, he was his normal bundle of energy. But he's trying - somewhat - to deflect attention.
"A lot of the focus is on me," said Pregracke, who's been featured in magazines such as People, Biography, and Time. "But it's not about me."
He was talking about his river-cleanup efforts, but then he addressed the teachers: "This is about you," he said.
The problem for Pregracke is that for as long as he's involved with it, Living Lands & Waters will always be about him. He's such an energetic, dynamic, and flaky force that it's hard to not be charmed by him.
This is the guy who, somewhat famously, went to Alcoa because of its place in the phone book, demanded to talk to the top guy, and ended up with $10,000.
This is a guy whose brain can barely keep up with his words, such as when he told the teachers that his group's money "strictly pretty much for the most part" comes from companies and individuals rather than government. (Living Lands & Waters is now a $500,000-a-year operation.)
This is a guy whose spiels include sound effects, broad gestures, and questions to himself ("So, where'm I goin' with this?").
In other words, Pregracke is an attention magnet, and he seems to like it. When a photographer told Pregracke that he wanted him to turn a certain way, the Mississippi Trash Man mugged furiously.
For all these reasons, the education workshops last month were an ideal next step for Pregracke and his organization. Anything associated with Living Lands & Waters is going to have Pregracke all over it, but if he can get teachers excited about the river - and if they in turn can get their students and fellow educators pumped - Pregracke's reach extends much further. The goal is to give teachers information and resources that they can incorporate into their curricula.
Just as importantly, while Living Lands & Waters' focus is narrow - "I'm talking about something simple, and that's trash," Pregracke said - these educational workshops are much broader. They could represent the first step of leveraging Pregracke's name and personality to transform the organization into something bigger.
Teachers learned about different facets of the environment, history, and commerce during the one-day workshops and talked with a wide variety of experts, from fishermen to barge executives to representatives of federal agencies.
Living Lands & Waters considers the workshops a success, even though only the two Davenport workshops were full. The organization recognizes that it's naturally going to get a lot more response near the Quad Cities, where a much larger portion of the population knows about East Moline native Pregracke.
Pregracke is pledging to do similar workshops in the future, which is a little odd considering that he told the assembled teachers, "My deal isn't education."
That's one reason he hired education coordinator Tammy Becker to organize the workshops, and why his role in them is more ceremonial than educational. The story of how Becker joined the Living Lands & Waters team is instructive in its Biblical overtones; Pregracke is by no means a messiah, but he clearly has magic in him, the ability to draw people to him and get them to join his crusade. Becker met Pregracke six years ago and asked him for a job when she saw him again in November. His response: "Come on board, but we leave tomorrow."
Friday's workshop was hampered a bit by wind, early rain, and the threat of continued bad weather. "You're not going to get the mud-on-your-boots flavor," Hopkins said.
The workshop was nonetheless the antithesis of textbook learning. The session was held on the Living Lands & Waters boat - where as many as five staff members live and work - and featured excursions that reinforced what speakers were saying. The floating classroom visited the Milan Bottoms - one of the largest contiguous bottomland forests on the upper Mississippi River - and teachers talked to commercial fishermen who pulled up beside the houseboat, the president of a barge company, and representatives of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers. Teachers learned about the lock-and-dam system and went through a lock.
They learned, for example, that waterways carry 15 percent of the country's cargo but use only 3 percent of its transportation energy. "We're extremely efficient, and that's our niche," said Alter Barge President Daily. They used roasting pans, foil, soda cans, water, cocoa powder, and food coloring to mimic watersheds and the effects of different types of pollution.
Hopkins, who was a teacher for seven years, also gave the teachers a 250-page education guide that includes reference materials and hands-on activities for students. "I'd like you to think of the river as a teaching tool," Hopkins said.
Although transportation and commerce were discussed during the workshop, the environment was a focus. And of course, everything eventually affects or is affected by the well-being of the river. The way the Mississippi is manipulated for transportation can have a major impact on habitats, and the health of the river can make or break fishermen. The way our communities develop and how we treat our lawns have repercussions in terms of pollution and runoff. And because many communities, including the Quad Cities, get their drinking water from the Mississippi, pollution is a major concern.
Yet Pregracke is adamant that he doesn't consider himself an environmentalist; he thinks the label divisive. "All I want to be known as is a hard-working American," he said.
Still, his organization plans to plant 4,000 trees this year, another sign that Living Lands & Waters is extending its reach. "Four thousand trees is small," Pregracke said, "but six years ago so was my john boat."
For more information on Living Lands & Waters, including a schedule of cleanups, visit (http://www.cleanrivers.com). Quad Cities cleanups are scheduled for August 9 and 16.
