PAST NEWSLETTERS
May 2005
January 2005
September 2004
August 2006
2006 Accomplishments

CURRENT NEWSLETTER

Living Lands & Waters 2007 Accomplishments... so far!

River Cleanups – LL&W coordinated and participated in 57 community-based river cleanups with over 2,500 volunteers, collecting approximately 75 tons of garbage so far this year, and we’re not finished.

Big River Educational Workshops – Seventeen days of educational workshops were held in 9 towns and cities with a total participation of 476 educators for the year. This brings our total number of teacher participants in the last 5 years to 1,680 who brought river education to an estimated 100,000 students!  

Riverbottom Restoration Projects –The program kicked into full force in September with several tree plantings and invasive plant removal projects in Illinois, Iowa and Kentucky.  Nearly 2 acres of invasive plants were removed in Minnesota and Kentucky.

Adopt-A-Mile – The Adopt-A-Mississippi River Mile Program currently has 85 groups cleaning 167.1 miles on a regular basis.  We recently added the Adopt-An-Illinois River Mile Program and hope it will be just as successful.

Year In Review

January/February- We started the year by planning for upcoming projects and events.  LL&W’s East Moline headquarters was completed and the crew moved into its new land based home.  The crew spent the winter repairing equipment and building 2 new boats and trailers.   In Louisville, KY, we worked with the Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District and local volunteers to remove invasive plants.
 
March- LL&W kicked off the season on the Ohio River in Louisville, KY, where we hosted a month of river cleanups and 3 educational workshops.  Fifty-three college students from Monmouth College and SUNY came out for a week as part of an “alternative spring break” program, filling 1 1/2 barges with garbage in just 3 weeks!

April- LL&W returned for the fourth year to clean up the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers in our nation’s capital.  Throughout the month, we held 16 days of cleanups with over 500 volunteers!  April also marked the release of Chad’s book, From the Bottom Up, with a huge book release party!

May-We returned to the Ohio River for several cleanups and 2 workshops in Evansville, IN.  We also hosted the first Marine Industry River Cleanup Challenge in Paducah, KY, with industry employees competing to see who could recruit the most volunteers and collect the most garbage.

June-Plans to move the barges to the Mid-Mississippi were postponed due to flooding, so the barges stayed on the Ohio River longer than expected.  We made the best of our time by repainting our entire house boat, and picking up garbage every day.  We still managed to conduct several cleanups on the Mississippi River by trailering our jon boats to the sites.
 
July- When the waters receded, LL&W traveled to St. Louis to join forces with long-time sponsor Anheuser-Busch to clean up the Mississippi riverfront on Saturday, July 14.  Four hundred volunteers showed up to fill 1,400 bags, remove 218 tires and collect a total of 12 tons of trash in only 3 hours!  We held our second annual 4-day traveling educational workshop from St. Louis, MO, to Hannibal, MO, and a 3-day workshop from Burlington, IA, to Rock Island, IL.  The film crew from CBS Sunday Morning News shot footage during a 3-day cleanup in Burlington, IA, with 150 volunteers (the piece aired September 23).  We also conducted several sponsor cleanups along the Illinois River.

August –We traveled a long way from the Mississippi River to South Dakota to promote the recycling program we implemented last year at the Sturgis Rally, the largest motorcycle rally in the world (500,000 people).  Upon our return to the Quad Cities, we held a 1-day workshop:  From Fields to Fresh Water: The Ag Connections to River Systems. We rounded out the month with our annual barge party attended by 674 guests, co-hosted the Quad Cities’ Xstream Cleanup, and co-hosted the River Roots Live Music Festival. 
 
September- Several crew members spent 2 weeks in the Rushford, MN area helping flood victims clear debris.  For the fifth year, LL&W and volunteers cleared honeysuckle from Smith’s Island in LeClaire, IA.  The crew traveled to Starved Rock State Park in Utica, IL, for a 5-day canyon cleanup, and the Sundance Channel’s film crew shot footage of a cleanup at Rock Island’s Sunset Park.  The MillionTrees Project got off to a great start as the crew and volunteers from several states began collecting acorns for the first planting.

October- The crew removed invasive plants in Clinton, IA, and returned to Smith’s Island to continue their work.  During the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Ducky Derby held October 13, several crew members plucked duckies from the Mississippi River..  We ended the month hosting tree plantings in Peoria, IL, Paducah, KY, and Naples, IL, as well as a river cleanup in Dubuque, IA.

Thank you for making this all possible!!