[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 17860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO CHAD PREGRACKE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today I wish to honor the outstanding work 
of a great Illinoisan, Chad Pregracke, who has just been named a 2013 
CNN Hero.
  A native of East Moline, IL, Chad grew up knowing how important the 
Mississippi River was to his community. He spent a lot of time on the 
river with his parents, KeeKee and Gary, and his older brother Brent. 
Chad saw how badly the river was being polluted and knew something had 
to be done. When no one else stepped up, he decided he would.
  In 1997, he received a small grant and spent that summer cleaning up 
part of the river on his own, sorting through the trash on his parents' 
front lawn.
  In 1998, when he was just 23 years old, Chad founded his own non-
profit--Living Lands & Waters. The venture has now grown to a full 
staff and fleet of barges. Living Lands & Waters relies on teams of 
volunteers throughout the Nation, with a heavy focus on the 
Mississippi, Illinois and Ohio River regions.
  Living Lands & Waters organizes about 70 cleanups a year in 50 
different communities. Chad estimates that his group has worked with 
about 70,000 volunteers to remove more than 7 million pounds of trash 
from the Nation's waterways. Among the trash they have pulled from 
river are more than 67,000 tires, 218 washing machines and four pianos.
  Not all of their finds are the size of pianos. Chad boasts an 
extensive collection of messages in bottles he has found over the 
years. To date, Chad has retrieved 64 of these bottles, often hundreds 
of miles from their place of origin. They include everything from love 
letters and lottery tickets to treasure maps and simple notes of good 
wishes.
  Chad's hard work has earned him significant recognition and praise, 
most recently being honored by CNN as one of its 2013 Heroes. I am 
pleased to add my thanks to Chad Pregracke for working to improve our 
communities by saving our rivers.

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