RIPLEY, Ohio — Moored in Ripley, sits a barge filled with litter gathered from the Ohio River, and volunteers who are trying to clean up this waterway.
Chad Pregracke, founder and president of Living Lands and Waters, said his group has been working for the past two weeks, between Manchester, Ohio and Ripley, removing any and all trash they can find that is littering the Ohio River.
Volunteers have gathered everything from 55 gallon barrels and tires to baskets, basketballs, batteries and barge lines from the murky depths of the river.
“Anything that shouldn’t be there, looks like a trash river, we’re trying to change that,” he said.
Living Lands and Waters is a non profit environmental organization headquartered in East Moline, Ill., and the organization spends up to nine months a year hosting river cleanups, watershed conservation initiatives, workshops, tree plantings and other key conservation efforts.
Helping Pregracke with this endeavour throughout the next couple of weeks are volunteers with In Good Company, an alliance of businesses who work on projects focused on food, housing and environmental restoration. According to Pregracke, several of these volunteers come from all across the country and they are all dedicated in doing what they can to better the environment
“It’s not like you just come down for a two-hour cleanup, these guys are here with us eight hours a day, every day, for five days,” he said, “and that’s how we’re able to get so much stuff in the volumes we’re getting.”
Based on Pregracke’s records, on the first week of cleanup for this portion of the river, more than 29,000 pounds of trash was pulled from the river, while in the second week more than 24,000 pounds was pulled.
Project Manager for In Good Company Brian LeMoine said the group has recognized the issue with plastics polluting not only the oceans but also rivers, and that Living Lands and Waters is exactly what is needed to deal with the issue.
“The ocean’s plastic problem is a big issue, but we really have to realize that a lot of that plastic comes from rivers,” he said, “and it’s much, much easier to address the ocean’s plastic problem by really going after it in rivers. And that’s where these guys come in, and (Living Lands and Waters) are completely dialed in to do that kind of work.”
Growing up next to the Mississippi River, Pregracke has a high regard for rivers and their natural beauty, and he believed that these bodies of water should be cleaned and maintained.
“I think some people think this is like environmental work and it is — it’s good for the environment, good for the rivers — but I also think its a good patriotic thing to do,” he said. “There’s different ways to serve your country, and I think this is a patriotic service to the country, whether you’re a volunteer for two hours or you do it fulltime like my crew does. I think it’s a patriotic thing and I’m happy to be a part of it.”
