Living Lands & Waters 2006 Season
August 2006

2006 has been an exciting and productive year!  We’ve held 56 cleanups with over 1,800 volunteers in 16 cities, and collected approximately 100 tons of garbage in less than six months.  We’ve also held 10 educational workshops in 10 cities with an outstanding attendance of 300 participants.  Our first excursion workshops took place in July, and proved to be a tremendous success!

Ohio River
We kicked off the season on the Ohio River in Louisville, KY in March, where we hosted a month of volunteer-based river cleanups and five educational workshops.  Approximately 500 volunteers participated in the cleanups and 150 participants joined us for the workshops.  We are proud to say that in 12 days of cleanups, we collected 10 tons of trash and over 500 tires from the banks of the Ohio River and its tributaries.

Anacostia & Potomac Rivers 
From Louisville we packed up our equipment, trucks, trailers and boats and headed out to Washington, DC for the third year of Capital River Relief.  We spent a month and a half hosting river cleanups along the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.  In collaboration with Koch Industries the Earth Conservation Corps, we were able to make this year’s CRR project the most successful one yet!  We held 18 days of cleanups with two sessions each day.  700 volunteers collected approximately 70 tons of garbage between April 1 and May 10.  LL&W also built the first litter containment boom of its kind.  A litter containment boom is a floating horseshoe-shaped aluminum object that is anchored to the riverbank above storm water outfalls in order to trap litter from permeating the river.  The booms will be installed and maintained by the Earth Conservation Corps

Illinois River  
In June we headed back to the Midwest to the Illinois River, where we held ten community cleanups in Channahon, Morris, Peoria and Starved Rock, as well as 14 sponsor cleanups with Cargill and ADM.  We also held three educational workshops, with an attendance of 80 participants!

Home on the Great Mississippi 
In July we traveled to Saint Louis to join forces with long-time sponsor Anheuser-Busch to clean up the Mississippi riverfront, the riverfront trail, and to beautify the Jefferson Memorial Arch grounds on Saturday, July 8.  We are pleased to say that with the collaborative efforts from our 13 partner organizations, 400 volunteers showed up to fill 1,640 bags, remove 106 tires and collect a total of 10 tons of trash, in only three hours! 

Chad was joined by Francis G. Slay, Mayor of St. Louis to kick off the cleanup with a press conference on the waterfront.  The cleanup garnered media coverage on every major network in St. Louis.  In addition to the St. Louis cleanup, we also conducted four sponsor cleanups in July along the Mississippi River.

Shortly after the big cleanup under the Arch, we got ready for the first four-day traveling educational workshop, where 20 teachers joined us from St. Louis, MO to Hannibal, MO.  The four day workshop was immediately followed by a 3-day workshop where 30 teachers traveled with us from Hannibal, MO to Burlington, IA.  

In the beginning of August we traveled a long way from the river to Sturgis, SD to implement the first recycling program at the Sturgis Rally, the largest motorcycle rally in the world (500,000 people) in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  This project proved to be a huge success, and will be implemented for years to come.

Currently we’re back home in the Quad Cities gearing up for the Xstream Cleanup on Saturday, August 19, where 1,500 volunteers are expected at 31 locations to lend a helping hand.  Also coming up is a river cleanup, sponsor cleanup and an educational workshop in Dubuque, IA at the end of the month.

What’s Next?
It’s hard to believe summer is almost over, but we’re pumped up for the fall.  Our schedule is booked for our fourth season of tree plantings, invasive species removal, and habitat restoration in Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin.  Please see the Living Lands & Waters, Riverbottom Restoration website for volunteer opportunities www.livinglandsandwaters.org

2006 has been quite busy so far with river cleanups, educational workshops and planning for our upcoming reforestation projects – and it’s all possible because of your endless support.  

FROM ALL OF US AT LIVING LANDS AND WATERS,
THANKS FOR KEEPING US AFLOAT!!!!!