RFK Jr. The Defender - Cleaning the Mississippi River with Chad Pregracke

Chad Bedrocki is a man of many talents, but his passion for the Mississippi River and the work he does to keep it clean and safe for all of us on the river is one of the most important things we can do to protect the river and the people who live and work on it. He is a great man and an even better friend, and we had a great time talking about the river, and what it means to be a boater on the Mississippi and the other river tributaries in the Southeast, and how you can do your part to protect and protect the water we call home. I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you do, please remember to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms. Thank you so much to Chad and his crew for all the work they do to keep the river clean and clean up safe for everyone, and to all the volunteers who do their part to keep us safe and clean the river. Cheers, and thanks to everyone who has been a part of this journey with us and all the hard work that goes into making it a great day in the river! and thank you for all your support and all your hard work. Enjoy, and stay safe out there on The Mississippi River. See ya next week! - John Rocha and the crew at the Great Lakes Riverkeepers! Thanks to our sponsor, SONGS! . And thanks to all our sponsors! and sponsors for making this podcast possible. and our support is so much appreciated. Thanks, John Roperating and supporting us. . . . and we hope you have a wonderful day! , and we will see you next week with your support is coming back next week and next week. - The Riverkeeper - Thank you, John and the Riverkeeper! ! in the next episode of the Riverkeepers Podcast John R. is by John Rook and the Great Riverkeeper Podcast. by , & the River Keeper Podcast by Chad Bedrocky Thankyou, Thanks John Rigsby and the Crew at The Great Riverkeepers Club by the Great Mississippi Riverkeeper by , John Rowser by Bill and the City of Tuscaloosa, Inc., Inc. & is a little more than $500,000.

00:00:00.000 I want to welcome our audience and introduce one of my great friends and, you know, one of the great, great, great longtime River activists, Chad Bedrocki.

00:00:11.000 You look like you're in the pilot house of your tugboat, are you?

00:00:15.000 Honestly, it's not just for the picture.

00:00:18.000 It's because it's the highest point with the best reception.

00:00:22.000 But yeah, it's a good place to be for sure.

00:00:24.000 Yeah.

00:00:25.000 And I don't know when did we meet the first time.

00:00:28.000 We met at that Waterkeeper event, one of the early Waterkeeper events.

00:00:33.000 Was it the one in New York?

00:00:35.000 There was one in California and then one in New York.

00:00:38.000 Yeah, we met at the San Diego one.

00:00:44.000 And then the one with Billy Joel, who Billy Joel hosted in Southampton, and he took us all out on his boat.

00:00:52.000 It was so cool, man.

00:00:54.000 Up in his airplane.

00:00:58.000 And we had invited Chad at that time to recruit him as the Mississippi Riverkeeper.

00:01:05.000 I think, as I recall, you had swum the Mississippi at that point or something.

00:01:10.000 You had done something really crazy that impressed a lot of people.

00:01:17.000 But Chad now operates a series of barges.

00:01:22.000 On the Mississippi, on the Tennessee, on the Ohio, he has 100,000 volunteers, and they clean up garbage, and they've cleaned up more garbage than anybody, I think, in the history of the world.

00:01:34.000 How many pounds of garbage have you pulled out of the river?

00:01:37.000 Within the next month or so, it'll exceed 11 million pounds.

00:01:41.000 He used to go in there just in a bathing suit and pull out tires.

00:01:46.000 I hope you're not doing that anymore.

00:01:49.000 No, I'm still at it.

00:01:52.000 Honestly, it keeps me youthful.

00:01:53.000 At least I think it does.

00:01:55.000 No, I'm still at it.

00:01:57.000 As you know, there's so much work to do.

00:01:59.000 And truthfully, most of the time, I feel like I'm just getting started.

00:02:03.000 Like you, I love what I do.

00:02:04.000 And I just not really work.

00:02:07.000 It's just life.

00:02:08.000 You know, it's like the more you do, you just get a great sense of accomplishment.

00:02:12.000 And I get to, you know, be around the water and surround yourself with great people.

00:02:17.000 And it makes it happen, you know?

00:02:19.000 What does your fleet look like now?

00:02:23.000 Last time I talked to you, which was a couple of years ago, you had about, I don't know, three or four barges and a whole fleet of John boats that were actually out there with personnel pulling garbage up and filling the John boats.

00:02:37.000 So we have five barges, we have two tow boats, we have six 30-foot workboats, That'll haul, you know, 5,000 pounds apiece.

00:02:47.000 They haul volunteers.

00:02:49.000 They haul the trash.

00:02:51.000 We custom make them.

00:02:52.000 We have a welding shop as part of our office headquarters for our land-based operations.

00:02:56.000 You know, we go town to town, city to city, do a cleanups.

00:03:00.000 Then on one of the barges, it's our floating headquarters.

00:03:03.000 It's actually made out of an old strip club.

00:03:05.000 I know it sounds crazy, but I recycled it and built it on there.

00:03:08.000 But it's a classroom floor.

00:03:09.000 For kids, and we typically have high school students, juniors and seniors, just because they're very impressionistic at that time.

00:03:16.000 And I have two great environmental educators that live aboard here.

00:03:19.000 One guy, I met him, he was rapping with a jazz band about 14 years ago.

00:03:24.000 He turned out to be a history teacher.

00:03:26.000 He joined a year later.

00:03:28.000 It's a wonderful team of people, and, you know, everybody's just as dedicated as I am, and we get a lot done for what we have, you know?

00:03:36.000 Are you still out of Moline, Illinois?

00:03:39.000 That's where I think you were out of when...

00:03:41.000 Yeah, East Moline.

00:03:43.000 20 or 25 years ago, whenever we met.

00:03:46.000 Yeah.

00:03:47.000 Actually, it was more than that.

00:03:50.000 Yeah.

00:03:51.000 It was 27 years ago, and you were out of Moline.

00:03:55.000 You grew up swimming and fishing and hunting on the Mississippi, and I think you worked as a clamor for a while.

00:04:03.000 Yeah, no, and honestly...

00:04:05.000 At the time, it was really tough, dangerous work.

00:04:09.000 Clamming, that is.

00:04:09.000 That's what we call it.

00:04:10.000 It's essentially being a muscle diver on the bottom of the Mississippi River, spending about 8 to 10 hours a day on the bottom of the river.

00:04:18.000 That really solidified a connection to the river that most people have never had.

00:04:23.000 When you're down there, you can't see anything.

00:04:26.000 It's like being in a cave and You're the anchor for the boat, got a lead weight belt on about 100 pounds, and you're crawling upstream, but you can't see it all, but you can hear.

00:04:36.000 And what you can hear are all these fish communicating, like, from all over.

00:04:41.000 Like, catfish sound like bullfrogs.

00:04:43.000 This time of year, they're schooled up, so they're really active.

00:04:46.000 They're spawning, and drum are going click, click, click, click, click.

00:04:50.000 So, really cool.

00:04:52.000 It was a great experience to have, and I basically, I can't say I crawled every inch of it, but I crawled about a 150-mile stretch of the river over six summer seasons.

00:05:01.000 And so I just kind of, you know, had that experience and then camped out on all the islands to save money.

00:05:07.000 And that's where I kind of, you know, just really fell in love with the river beyond growing up on it.

00:05:14.000 Just like kind of just...

00:05:16.000 That's what led me to where I am today.

00:05:18.000 After I stopped doing that and started cleaning up, that's when I met you.

00:05:22.000 It's pretty cool.

00:05:23.000 It's good to see you again.

00:05:24.000 It must also be scary underwater when you hear the propellers, the screws of these big barges that are probably scraping the bottom right near you.

00:05:35.000 You can hear them.

00:05:36.000 You can hear those.

00:05:37.000 You can really hear, like, just regular motorboats.

00:05:40.000 Like, they're really high-pitched, you know, and honestly, it's eerie because they, I mean, even if they're 100 feet away, they feel like they're right on top of you, and you have an air hose, you know, that gets pumped there, so you're always worried about the air hose getting cut or what have you.

00:05:54.000 But, you know, you can hear a radio, too, and 28 foot above you.

00:05:59.000 And that's how good you can hear certain days.

00:06:01.000 Sometimes the current's ripping so fast that all you can hear is your bubbles and everything's flapping down there.

00:06:07.000 But on certain areas, you can hear all the fish.

00:06:11.000 You can hear barges.

00:06:12.000 You can hear motorboats.

00:06:15.000 I mean, kind of depends on the day, you know?

00:06:17.000 And what were you doing with the mussels, Chad?

00:06:20.000 Selling them for the culture pearl industry.

00:06:23.000 So...

00:06:23.000 I would take them, they bought them by the pound, you'd sort them out by the species, you know, like a ringer.

00:06:30.000 And I started out just being, I just sorted out for my brother and then I started diving.

00:06:35.000 Then they'd get shipped to Japan. 0.59

00:06:37.000 Then Japan would punch little beads in them. 1.00

00:06:39.000 Then they'd put those surgically and plant those little beads in their oysters. 1.00

00:06:43.000 Then they'd have big racks in these oyster farms.

00:06:45.000 Then it would serve as like an irritant to the oyster and cover it. 0.68

00:06:50.000 The oyster would cover that bead and then they'd sell it back to you as a cultured pearl.

00:06:55.000 I was part of the cultured pearl industry.

00:06:57.000 I wasn't really high paid by any means, but it was a great experience to have.

00:07:02.000 What I liked about it was The more you put into it, the more you got out of it, similar to what I do now or education or so many things in life.

00:07:10.000 So it was hard work, but it was good.

00:07:13.000 I liked it.

00:07:13.000 How many muscles would you catch in an hour?

00:07:17.000 I mean, it depends on where you're at.

00:07:19.000 You know, you're holding on to the bottom with one hand and you're feeling all around with little dish gloves on for the other hand and you'd grab it and you'd put it in a bag till you got You know, sometimes 80 pounds around your neck, but not all of them are alive.

00:07:32.000 Most of them are dead.

00:07:33.000 And once they're dead, they kind of blow up.

00:07:36.000 They're more, you can feel them better because a shell that might be this big or maybe, you know, like the half the side of a football might only stick out a quarter inch out of the mud or substrate sand rock.

00:07:48.000 So you'd be feeling every little thing you could down there.

00:07:52.000 It was tough work, but it was great, you know?

00:07:54.000 It's actually a peaceful place to be most of the time if you're not feeling like the current's too fast.

00:08:01.000 No cell phones down there.

00:08:07.000 But, hey, just to throw a shout out for what you guys do.

00:08:10.000 I know, you know, you're talking about what we do and clean up rivers and garbage.

00:08:15.000 But, you know, we're focused on the things you can see.

00:08:18.000 And you guys, Water Keepers, are focusing on the things people can't see.

00:08:23.000 You know, so I just want to throw a shout out for what you guys do.

00:08:26.000 And, you know, we're all part of a bigger movement.

00:08:29.000 And I appreciate you leading the way on all that.

00:08:32.000 So, you know, I feel like, just to throw this out there, What I do is I don't know if it's sexy, but it's very result-oriented right then.

00:08:43.000 You get to see your boatloads, your tonnage, your barge loads, you know, and sometimes what you guys are working on takes years and years to do.

00:08:52.000 And so, you know, the patients and the things you deal with, I just want to throw a shout out and say thanks so much to you and your entire organization for all you guys do.

00:09:04.000 What's the weirdest thing you ever found underwater?

00:09:08.000 Do you ever see a car come at you in the current?

00:09:13.000 So you're talking about when I'm down there?

00:09:19.000 Either way, if you've got a good story, let's hear it.

00:09:23.000 Okay, well, the worst thing you can touch underwater is a couch cushion.

00:09:27.000 Because what do you think a couch cushion feels like?

00:09:31.000 Like a body.

00:09:32.000 It feels like a body, you know?

00:09:34.000 And that always freaked me out.

00:09:36.000 You would touch one and you'd be like, oh, and you'd move away from it.

00:09:39.000 But then it would drive you crazy in a pitch black and you'd have to go back and feel it because it would just mentally drive you crazy.

00:09:46.000 And then you'd figure out it's a couch cushion or something similar.

00:09:49.000 But the fear was really snapping turtles in the shallower water.

00:09:53.000 That was always a fear of mine, you know?

00:09:55.000 And you try to kind of be noisy and We're good to go.

00:10:18.000 I'm at a cleanup and there's a piece of metal in the bottom of my boat.

00:10:22.000 It's a wavy day.

00:10:23.000 I switch boats with somebody and it's bouncing, bouncing, you know, in this thing.

00:10:27.000 I picked it up.

00:10:28.000 I thought it was a drill bit for like something you drill through a road or concrete.

00:10:32.000 So I just threw it back down, whatever.

00:10:34.000 And long story short is a guy called us and said, Hey, you still have that?

00:10:39.000 I left that in your boat.

00:10:40.000 I found out what it was.

00:10:41.000 It was an artillery shell from the Civil War.

00:10:43.000 We're like, He's like, can I come get him?

00:10:44.000 I'm like, yeah, cool.

00:10:45.000 Come on down. 0.94

00:10:46.000 So then we texted him and said, hey, what'd you ever find out?

00:10:49.000 Three days later, he's like, well, I basically, the bomb squad, or the cops found out I had this thing.

00:10:57.000 The bomb squad came and evacuated his entire apartment complex and said as it dried out, it becomes active again.

00:11:04.000 And basically the text ended with, how was your Monday?

00:11:07.000 And so that's one of the crazy things.

00:11:09.000 You find money from bank, not money from bank robberies, but all the bags from bank robbery.

00:11:15.000 And then I found the surveillance tape back in the early 2000s when they had VHS tapes.

00:11:20.000 It was wrapped in plastic and duct tape so tight that it never got wet.

00:11:23.000 So that was crazy.

00:11:25.000 But You know, guns, grenades.

00:11:27.000 I mean, honestly, you just never know what you're going to find.

00:11:30.000 But I have one of the world's largest message in a bottle collections.

00:11:33.000 It's actually on tour, going to different museums and stuff.

00:11:37.000 So it's pretty cool to find.

00:11:41.000 You know, Alec Mathis, and he was the...

00:11:44.000 He was the second Hudson River keeper, and his first day on the job, he was kayaking around Manhattan, and he was up on the East River, and he found a body in the river.

00:11:58.000 And he called the police on his cell phone, and had been there a while.

00:12:01.000 Anyway, he called the police on his cell phone, and they said, push the body to the Brooklyn side.

00:12:08.000 And so he had to do that job.

00:12:11.000 And when he got there, they detained him as a witness.

00:12:14.000 And he was like, I called you guys.

00:12:17.000 But anyway, it was part of the job.

00:12:21.000 I found this body up on the south side of Chicago, right around the time that one cop in Chicago had three of his wives had disappeared.

00:12:30.000 I found this body and they thought it was her and it was crazy.

00:12:34.000 But we found...

00:12:36.000 Not quite a few, but a decent amount.

00:12:40.000 It is what it is.

00:12:41.000 They don't really affect me all that much.

00:12:44.000 It just is what it is.

00:12:48.000 What do you do?

00:12:50.000 What do you do with all the garbage you get out of the river, Chad?

00:12:53.000 We try to recycle as much as we possibly can.

00:12:57.000 We pick up bottles and cans and barge loads of them in certain places.

00:13:03.000 And so we sort out everything as a crew.

00:13:06.000 Certain barges are used for different, like one's just a tire barge, you know, and one's just a scrap metal and appliances.

00:13:12.000 And then we have our plastics and big plastics, small plastics.

00:13:16.000 But we want to be able to recycle as much as we can.

00:13:19.000 So what we did is we put on an event called Recycle Like a Rockstar and hired like a DJ and smoke machines and laser beams.

00:13:26.000 It made it like an event, you know, and like a fun event.

00:13:29.000 And we can do about 60,000 to 70,000 pounds with 150 people, recycle every bottle and can that comes in is recycled.

00:13:38.000 And so we try to do as much as we can, not only getting it out of the river, but then doing something with it.

00:13:44.000 We have one stuff is just for all the toxic chemicals and the batteries and the propane tanks.

00:13:50.000 You know, that whole section is, we'll hire an environmental company to come in and take them all away and We've done like 5,055 gallon barrels or some number like that, a thousand refrigerators.

00:14:03.000 And, you know, so it's, it really is an efficient river cleanup operation.

00:14:07.000 We have like an excavator and cranes and for the big stuff, the cars and boats and it's evolved, but just out of necessity.

00:14:16.000 And it's a fun deal.

00:14:18.000 Yeah, I want to again thank you for, not only for everything you do, but for your generosity to the water keepers.

00:14:26.000 And there's a number of water keepers who have gotten boats from you, boats that you've kind of worn out and, you know, you've been really generous about giving us patrol boats for our work.

00:14:37.000 Yeah, no, no worries.

00:14:38.000 Yeah, no, it's no problem at all.

00:14:42.000 Tennessee Riverkeeper, David.

00:14:43.000 I mean, that really worked out really well.

00:14:46.000 And then the one in D.C., I can't remember.

00:14:50.000 I think Anacostia or the Potomac.

00:14:52.000 Anacostia.

00:14:53.000 Totally.

00:14:54.000 They got one from you.

00:14:55.000 Yeah.

00:14:56.000 But if somebody needs it and they don't have the means or it just works out well, it just works.

00:15:02.000 People are very generous to us, and that's how we do our deal.

00:15:07.000 And so it's good to return the favor when needed.

00:15:09.000 You gave Tennessee Riverkeeper a boat, one of your custom-built trash boats that you weren't using.

00:15:15.000 It's allowed us to remove over 12,000 pounds of trash in Nashville so far and a little over a year.

00:15:21.000 You've helped so many other groups.

00:15:23.000 You're very generous and your legacy is not only the trash you've pulled out, but the training and the resources you provide other organizations for their cleanups too.

00:15:34.000 So I thank you for that.

00:15:35.000 It's all good.

00:15:37.000 Again, it's just cool.

00:15:39.000 It's been a long time since I've seen you, and it's cool to be on your show, man.

00:15:45.000 It's an honor.

00:15:46.000 It really is.

00:15:47.000 Have you ever found a diamond ring or anything of value in the river?

00:15:51.000 Money?

00:15:53.000 No, not really.

00:15:56.000 No, nothing like that.

00:15:59.000 No, not really. 0.75

00:16:01.000 Driftwood's fun to find, but other than that, it's just a lot of junk, really.

00:16:06.000 No, not too much, you know?

00:16:10.000 Oh, I hear you have a fantastic doll collection.

00:16:15.000 Uh, yes.

00:16:16.000 I have a whole fence on the barge full of creepy dolls. 0.99

00:16:21.000 That is scary.

00:16:23.000 Mad Max or, like, Waterworld or one of those deals.

00:16:28.000 I don't even know how it started.

00:16:29.000 Somebody just put one up and then it just been growing and, you know, it's just, yes, it is very, they are really creepy, actually.

00:16:36.000 You know, it's just something interesting for all the students that come here, the people, and try to make it festive and, I guess, Weird to a certain degree, but what it is, the barge is really, they shock people with just how much stuff, the volume of the stuff we're bringing out.

00:16:52.000 And really, the efficiency of what we do is really what's important too, because to have to get little dumpsters everywhere and all this is just tough to do for where we need to work.

00:17:03.000 So this thing is, it's cool in so many ways.

00:17:07.000 So, you've gotten into a new racket recently, I've heard, which is planting trees.

00:17:14.000 Yeah, not...

00:17:16.000 I mean, I've been doing it for quite a while.

00:17:17.000 It started out...

00:17:18.000 Basically, people think that I see wildlife all the time because I live on the Mississippi River on these islands.

00:17:26.000 It's normally where we park our barges.

00:17:28.000 And the truth is, there's not a lot of food for wildlife on a lot of these islands.

00:17:32.000 Going back, the steamboat era cut all the trees down.

00:17:36.000 They couldn't use them for fuel until they switched with coal to coal.

00:17:39.000 Then the trees started growing back up, but then the dams were building and changed the hydrology.

00:17:44.000 So a lot of the hardwoods that create a lot of food for wildlife, like acorns, they weren't flood tolerant and they could only survive on the higher islands.

00:17:53.000 They got logged, what have you.

00:17:55.000 Wasn't seeing much.

00:17:56.000 So I was just noticing that just void of wildlife because no food.

00:18:02.000 This one hunting club actually had logged a bunch and I went back and planted some trees.

00:18:08.000 People heard about it.

00:18:09.000 They liked it.

00:18:10.000 I did that on another island.

00:18:11.000 Another island.

00:18:12.000 People wanted trees.

00:18:14.000 I started giving trees away because I couldn't be everywhere.

00:18:16.000 Turned out, started in a nursery and...

00:18:20.000 We've given away, I think it's 1 million, or planted, 1,530,000.

00:18:28.000 I don't know.

00:18:29.000 We just gave 173,000 out in just the last six weeks or planted them.

00:18:34.000 So we're, everybody's regrouping and now everybody comes back to the river because we're done with that for the year.

00:18:40.000 So, you know, trees is leaving a legacy.

00:18:43.000 Those trees will be growing, creating fruit for wildlife, well beyond my lifetime.

00:18:48.000 That's a cool thing.

00:18:49.000 Who doesn't like a tree?

00:18:51.000 It's good to do.

00:18:53.000 Tell us about the Bison Bridge.

00:18:58.000 This is crazy, but I'm going to go with crazy when we're talking about Bison Bridge, right?

00:19:05.000 I didn't have this idea like this.

00:19:07.000 I woke up one day and had this idea.

00:19:09.000 This idea sort of transformed over 20 years.

00:19:13.000 Literally, around the same time I met you 20-some years ago, I had hired a plane within a year or two of meeting you.

00:19:20.000 I hired a plane in my hometown and hired a photographer to take me up And fly over Interstate 80 where it crosses the Mississippi River.

00:19:29.000 It's a very strategic spot.

00:19:31.000 And it's a quarter mile from where I grew up and where the shop for Living Lands and Waters is.

00:19:37.000 Anyway, I've always wanted a small herd of bison on the Illinois side.

00:19:41.000 And the reason being is because...

00:19:43.000 It's not just any interstate.

00:19:45.000 It's Interstate 80.

00:19:47.000 It dead ends downtown Manhattan, or it goes all the way out to San Francisco.

00:19:51.000 And it's an iconic spot.

00:19:53.000 You remember if you're driving with your family, crossing the Mississippi River and looking at it for the first time.

00:19:58.000 It's massive.

00:19:59.000 And you remember the Rocky Mountains and several other sites along the way.

00:20:03.000 But the fact was, nobody was stopping.

00:20:06.000 And I thought, man...

00:20:08.000 You know, there's 42,000 cars a day traveling over that bridge.

00:20:12.000 And I thought, you know, people aren't stopping.

00:20:14.000 Maybe a small herd of bison would because people love wildlife viewing.

00:20:19.000 So I originally wanted a small herd.

00:20:21.000 Then about, I started a restoration on five years ago at that strategic spot with a prairie restoration, all this.

00:20:28.000 Put a lot of money, a lot of time into this.

00:20:31.000 And then I heard that they're going to build a new bridge in the next five years, and they're going to blow the other one up.

00:20:37.000 And then it did hit me one day that basically that herd of bison, if you fill the westbound lane with, literally structurally, you could do this, 16 inches of dirt, except for the center span with nine inches of dirt, and you plant your grass, prairie grass.

00:20:54.000 Those bison literally could eat their way over to Iowa and eat their way back over in Illinois.

00:20:59.000 This sounds crazy, but you know what?

00:21:01.000 It needs to be.

00:21:03.000 Because people will stop.

00:21:04.000 And it does sound crazy.

00:21:06.000 Like yesterday, I did an interview from some newspaper in Europe.

00:21:10.000 I mean, it's really gained a lot of momentum.

00:21:12.000 I've had 29,000 people in the last, like, 30-some days sign up for it.

00:21:18.000 I'm trying to start a new national park, which sounds crazy.

00:21:21.000 But the bison, even though that's the hook and what gets people to stop because it's wildlife, It's really the celebration is the river.

00:21:29.000 It's crossing the Mississippi River.

00:21:31.000 And you already have a built-in audience of 42,000 cars that are traveling, plus the local is 400,000 people.

00:21:38.000 And there's not a national park for hundreds of miles on the river.

00:21:42.000 And I just think if you have the St.

00:21:44.000 Louis Arch, that's an arch.

00:21:46.000 You can have this.

00:21:47.000 And I'm not building a bridge.

00:21:48.000 I'm just trying to save it.

00:21:50.000 Would I waste your time talking about it if it wasn't legitimately going to happen?

00:21:54.000 I built a team of structural engineers and ex-IDOT, Illinois Department of Transportation folks and lobbyists and all this.

00:22:01.000 I'm going for it, man.

00:22:03.000 And financially, I vetted it.

00:22:05.000 Can I pay for it?

00:22:06.000 And could I pay for the maintenance of it? 0.94

00:22:08.000 Damn right. 0.71

00:22:09.000 So there's no reason why this thing can't happen.

00:22:12.000 The only thing I need From your people that are listening right now is people go to bisonbridge.org.

00:22:19.000 Again, it's bisonbridge.org.

00:22:20.000 I don't need all your information.

00:22:22.000 Just sign up.

00:22:23.000 That's all I need.

00:22:24.000 I'm not going to hit you up for money.

00:22:25.000 I just need you to sign up and let the powers that be know that a lot of people think this is a cool idea.

00:22:31.000 If you don't like it, that's fine, too.

00:22:34.000 No worries.

00:22:35.000 There was a lot.

00:22:36.000 You asked.

00:22:37.000 Yeah.

00:22:41.000 Tell me what your vision is for the future, John.

00:22:44.000 Where do you see it all going?

00:22:47.000 Well, certainly just making the most of my time.

00:22:49.000 I really love the aspect of engaging people.

00:22:52.000 And COVID, we couldn't really do that.

00:22:55.000 So it's good to get back to some normalcy here and get some events going again and open air.

00:23:01.000 I think more of the same.

00:23:03.000 And a lot of times people in organizations are We're business, for that matter.

00:23:07.000 I think we've got to grow, grow, grow.

00:23:09.000 And truthfully, it's a very manageable operation.

00:23:11.000 I can still raise the money and be effective.

00:23:15.000 And a small group of people, as you know, can have big impacts if you're well-managed and organized and focused.

00:23:22.000 I would say more of the same.

00:23:24.000 I guess that's the best answer.

00:23:25.000 We don't need growth to continue to do good.

00:23:29.000 That's probably where I would see the organization, just more tonnage and going for, you know, 20 million pounds and those sort of deals and engaging another hundred plus thousand people and going to places that we haven't been and continuing to maintain the momentum that we've built in certain places.

00:23:48.000 And just, you know, that's the real struggle is to go into new places that really need your help.

00:23:54.000 I mean, we're working in places in the middle of nowhere, you know, where there are no organizations or Or that sort of deal.

00:24:01.000 And then, you know, and you go back there and you build up momentum, but you know that there's a lot of other places that need us.

00:24:07.000 So that's always kind of a struggle, but it is what it is, you know, just balancing that.

00:24:13.000 But yeah, I'd say more of the same.

00:24:16.000 And tell us what part of the river you're working on, because Mississippi is a very, very big river.

00:24:24.000 Right now, we're, like yesterday, you know, there's crews, so the barge is one thing, but then we'll have a crew, like yesterday was up, basically up by Chicago on the Illinois River.

00:24:36.000 Right now, I'm on the Ohio and Tennessee, and this, we're going to go, just work on the Ohio a lot with the barges and the big stuff, because the Escamator can do a lot here.

00:24:47.000 And then we'll have two other crews working on the Illinois River.

00:24:52.000 Basically, from Peoria, Illinois, up to Chicago, which is maybe like a hundred, give or take, mile stretch on that river.

00:25:01.000 It's a lot easier to work there.

00:25:03.000 It's just a smaller, more condensed river.

00:25:06.000 I would say that Ohio is probably one of the dirtiest rivers in the United States, as far as trash and plastics.

00:25:12.000 I mean, it's unbelievable.

00:25:14.000 And I know you guys are doing a lot with plastics, and man, it's just...

00:25:20.000 I would say it'd blow your mind but I know you've seen a lot so it might not blow your mind but most people would blow their minds when they come out here and they just can't believe how much like two of our people this went out they probably got I don't know 2,500 pounds of stuff in the last five hours just two people so that gives you any instance but that's pretty And how can our viewers support you or even better volunteer for you?

00:25:50.000 I mean, if they live in a place where we're going to work, great.

00:25:53.000 But I would say don't support us.

00:25:55.000 Support your local group would be better and volunteer with them.

00:25:59.000 And if there isn't a group, Doing anything, then start your own, you know, do your own cleanup there.

00:26:04.000 But I'm not trying to turn down help.

00:26:07.000 I'll take all I can get, but it's important to, you know, focus on the local.

00:26:12.000 Because truthfully, like, we come through these places and we work with all these local different organizations, but they're there all the time.

00:26:20.000 You know, I don't want to be the 800-pound gorilla coming through there and But yeah, I'd say local.

00:26:26.000 And if you're interested to come out and check us out, please do.

00:26:29.000 Hit us up.

00:26:30.000 Email us.

00:26:32.000 When you talk about local groups, a lot of the local groups you're helping are waterkeeper groups.

00:26:37.000 They're on those waterways every day, patrolling, cleaning up, tracking down polluters.

00:26:43.000 I appreciate that plug.

00:26:45.000 But if people do want to help, Chad, how do they do it?

00:26:49.000 How do they get you?

00:26:50.000 How do they find you?

00:26:52.000 They can go to Living Lands and Waters.

00:26:54.000 Again, that's livinglandsandwaters.org or look up Mississippi River Cleanup.

00:26:59.000 We'll pop up on there.

00:27:01.000 Check us out and we'll take all the help we can get, that's for sure.

00:27:04.000 But I just want to throw a shout out for the locals again.

00:27:09.000 Thank you very much for joining me and we will see you on the water.

00:27:14.000 You bet.

00:27:15.000 Thanks a lot.

00:27:16.000 Living Lands and Waters is on social media.

00:27:18.000 Can you just close with the social medias for Living Lands and Water?

00:27:26.000 I would if I knew it was.

00:27:28.000 You have the handles, but you can just say, you know, we're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

00:27:32.000 Well, thank you, David.

00:27:33.000 And I guess we are on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook on Living Lands and Waters.

00:27:39.000 Yeah, for sure.

00:27:41.000 No, we're on Living Lands and Waters.

00:27:43.000 We're on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

00:27:46.000 And I was going to say, thank God for the marketing people.

00:27:51.000 Thank you, Chad.

00:27:53.000 You are my hero.

00:27:57.000 Thanks, guys.

00:27:58.000 Appreciate it.

RFK Jr. The Defender - May 16, 2021

Cleaning the Mississippi River with Chad Pregracke

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