FEATURE-Cleaning U.S. rivers, one refrigerator at a time
17 May 2007 11:00:39 GMT Source: Reuters
By Andrea Hopkins PADUCAH, Ky., May 17 (Reuters) - The day's catch from one of America's greatest rivers is massive: dozens of tires, coils of barge rope, thousands of plastic bottles, an old green couch -- and a single naked leg. The clean-up volunteers spotted the severed limb of a small mannequin almost as soon as they landed on the bank of the Ohio River. The white plastic flesh was stained with mud from hip to toes, like most of the garbage that would soon fill the Living Lands & Waters barge to near overflowing. "Dolls are the creepiest things you find," said Brent Pregracke, 37, one of about 100 people out on a recent spring day to help his brother Chad clean America's rivers one beer can -- or refrigerator -- at a time. Chad Pregracke was considered little more than a boyish nut when he set out on the Mississippi 10 years ago in a small fishing boat, determined to clean a 435-mile stretch of America's most storied river. Bored by college and disgusted by the trash littering the river near his home, Pregracke, then 22, tried to convince companies to fund his project. Only Alcoa Inc. <AA.N> signed on -- and Pregracke took their $8,400 check and got to work. Ten years later, Pregracke has dozens of sponsors, an $800,000 annual budget, a board of directors, office staff and five full-time crew members who share his mission. Pregracke planned to work himself out of a job within a few years, and volunteer drives have scoured many shores clean. In 2006 alone, the project pulled 3.5 million pounds of trash from various rivers, including 615 refrigerators and 22,396 tires. "We barely find cans in the weeds on the upper Mississippi, and the garbage is not returning," Pregracke said. But for every river he cleans, Pregracke finds another full of trash, and his sunburned, mud-splattered crew has expanded their efforts to include the Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Potomac and Anacostia rivers. COUCHES AND CARS The volunteers who came out to clean the Ohio River as part of a competition between local barge companies had no problem finding trash. "It's disgusting. I didn't think we'd find so many tires," said Susan Hall, 47, who usually spends her days behind a desk at Ingram Barge Co. in Nashville. Nearby, four co-workers strained to pull a couch out of the mud, while another shoveled dirt from a barrel so it could be lifted into a boat. Weird things are pulled from America's rivers. The crew once discovered a horse head in a cooler, and they've pulled tractors, cars and boats from the bottom. Messages in bottles are common. Crew member Jenn Branstetter, 28, has seen it all. In March, she pulled a small suit of armor out of the mud. "My knight in rusty armor," she laughed. Bottles of methamphetamine chemicals are considerably less charming. Branstetter joined the group in 2005 after what was supposed to be a two-week volunteer effort in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Inspired, Branstetter quit her two jobs and hasn't looked back. "I feel good out here," she said. "It's hard work and it's bizarre how comfortable you get being dirty. But at the end of the day, it's a good kind of tired." Pregracke's determination to forge ahead despite legal wranglings and myriad river mishaps -- chronicled in his book "From the Bottom Up," published in April -- has inspired many. Towboat captain Mike Hanlin, 65, in charge of steering the group's barges through busy industrial waterways, joined the project in 1999 after retiring as a school administrator. He had a Master's license and planned to spend his retirement piloting yachts. Then he heard about Pregracke's project. "In my wildest imagination, I never would have thought it would turn into what it has," Hanlin said. "It's not often you get to be part of a dream." Volunteers are equally enthusiastic. "We have garbage groupies who follow us around, driving three hours to get to the next cleanup," said crew member Tammy Becker, 30, who runs onboard workshops on river management and restoration for visiting teachers. The executives who once dodged calls from the crazy kid who wanted to clean rivers have also become believers. "He tried to call me for about a year. Finally I gave him 20 minutes," recalled John Eckstein, president and CEO of Marquette Transportation Co. in Paducah. "Two hours later we were friends." Sweating and dirty from a day with his employees cleaning the Ohio River, Eckstein said Marquette now tries to give Pregracke whatever he needs -- from unused barges to free tows upriver, a perk worth thousands of dollars. Pregracke said the best days are those when a hundred people come out to help, or when boatloads of strangers applaud him as they drive past. But he said when the crowds are gone, he's just a regular guy, pulling garbage out of the mud. "I didn't do this to be inspirational," he said. "I saw a problem and decided to do something about it."
