RockRiverSweep.org

A CLEANER VISION "2010"
(A river clean-up)
By
Frank Masterman
July 3, 2009

As I ponder the results of our recent community riverbank clean-up, and as I near completing my reading of Chad Pregracke's book "From the Bottom Up", I am reassured that my vision for a cleaner Rock River 'can and will' become reality.

This feeling comes about following nearly twenty years of dreaming of such an endeavor. Over these years I have talked to many people about organizing a river clean-up in and around Oregon, Illinois and I found only one person interested in such an idea and his response was "Call me if you get something organized".

Recently a community revitalization group called "Forward Oregon" was formed in our little city. This group, being represented by many, if not all of the various groups and organizations in town consists of members from the city, park district, school district, chamber of commerce, art groups, library, churches, members of the business community, and residents, etc. The purpose of "Forward Oregon" is to band the community together to revitalize and breathe new life into it.

Since a similar thought pattern has been planted in my mind for a number of years now, I figured maybe I should attend a meeting to see what was going on. Upon attending the first meeting of the "Tourism Committee", I was quite impressed and excited to see the enthusiasm in the room that day. Among the many subjects brought up during that first meeting, was an idea for a 'riverbank clean-up'. This idea was lightly brushed over and since I have run into so many dead-ends over the years, I decided to note this interest and await the right time to address the subject.

The next meeting I attended was the "Forward Oregon General Meeting". Of the many exciting and interesting topics mentioned that day, one was of a riverbank clean-up. It just so happened that over this past winter, I had been in touch with the national organization called American Rivers to get information about setting up a river clean-up, and so it was that I had in my field bag that day, a couple of copies of the American Rivers river clean-up 'Organizer's handbook'. I've never been one to resist an opportunity to embarrass myself by speaking out at the wrong time or in the wrong place or about an unpopular subject, so I reached in my bag and pulled a copy out, and as I raised it in the air over my head I began to express my desire to attention this subject and show that with American Rivers help, and armed with their handbook, we could do a clean-up in our city.

After all these years of dead-ends, I was quite surprised at the positive response from people in the room and in particular, when our "Community Improvement" committee chair, asked to see me about this following the meeting. Upon meeting Mr. Tom Mahoney, I was impressed with his enthusiasm regarding a clean-up and before I knew it, a follow-up meeting was scheduled for a river clean-up committee. This meeting was attended by Mr. Mahoney (Tom), Mrs. Mahoney (Angela), Mr. Mark Nehrkorn, and me.

I wished to get a clean-up organized in conjunction with "National Rivers Month" so we didn't have but about four weeks to plan and execute this. This group of people I met with turned out to be quite creative, well organized, enthusiastic, and very energetic toward this end and in about four weeks we had organized a river clean-up in Oregon, IL, registered it with American Rivers, received support, t-shirts, snacks, and plastic trash bags from them. Many gracious thanks to Heather Hamilton and Caitlin Jennings at American Rivers for all their help in bringing this clean-up to fruition.

On June 27, 2009, the day awakened with gorgeous sunshine, perfect temperatures, a light breeze rising, and with the aid of a local businessman allowing us to use his property near the dam, two local banks and a local apparel company providing t-shirts at no cost to us, Captain Greg Hunter of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources joining with us to give a briefing on river safety and patrolling above the dam, the Oregon Volunteer Fire Department assisting with their rescue boat and some volunteer firefighters below the dam, the local news media on hand for what turned out to be superb coverage, three local tire dealers agreeing to accept any recovered tires for disposal on a complimentary basis, our local park district providing port-a-potties for the registration/sorting area as well as trash hauling and disposal, and with the help of about seventy organizers and volunteers our clean-up was flawlessly executed.

This effort relieved our riverbank of 1-bicycle, 1-lawn chair, 1-sleeping bag, 5 tires (one on rim), and about 75 bags (approx 350#) of trash, in spite of torrential rains a week prior, causing a closure of the river by the IDNR, a major fish-kill, and a no-wake order within one week of the event. The river was re-opened and the no-wake order was lifted just in time for the clean-up.

Although our clean-up effort didn't cover near the area I had hoped for, and our boating participation was a long way from what I had hoped for, I was very pleased with the results… "The Rock River was cleaner!"

My thoughts during the planning stage of this clean-up effort were that next year would be bigger and better. Maybe my long-time dream of a clean-up from Oregon, IL to Grand Detour, IL would be possible. As planning and organizing progressed, I was made aware of "The Mississippi River Garbageman" Chad Pregracke, and upon researching Chad on the internet, I learned about Chad's organization, "Living Lands & Waters" and that he had written a book about his river clean-up adventures on the Mississippi River, the Illinois River, the Ohio River, and others. Immediately I ordered two copies of his book, one for me and one to share on display at our clean-up registration table.

I have been accused of being a big dreamer at times and of course, this time turned out to be no exception, as my dreams for a clean-up next year grew to maybe include Dixon, IL and see if maybe that community would like to join the effort and work upriver to Grand detour and meet our crews there. Well, one thing led to another inside this thick skull of mine and an expansion to include Byron, IL, upriver from Oregon began to form on the horizon. All this time we were organizing our local event and as community involvement grew, my hopes and dreams grew at an unexpected rate. So my mind pondered, "If I can envision a Rock River clean-up from Byron to Dixon, why stop there? Why not address the Rock River from one state-line to the other? Would that be cool, or what?" To get every community and every civic organization in said communities involved would be quite an ambitious undertaking.

This is the point where I got really crazy. Why not invite the state of Wisconsin to join in this Rock River clean-up effort? After all, the "Rock" does originate up there, doesn't it? And, after all, if I can get one other community to join in, why not get them all to join in, wouldn't that be great? Yes, why not? Why not "The Great Rock River Sweep"?

OK, so maybe this is a little bit of a grand scheme. The carving of Mount Rushmore was a bit of a grand scheme wasn't it? Gutzon Borglum didn't let a little thing like that stop him, he had a purpose. Traveling to the moon was a bit of a grand scheme, wasn't it? We didn't let that stop us. So, why should I let anything get in the way of my dream of cleaning, preserving, and our being good guardians of a national treasure like the Rock River? This was the time to let the cat out of the bag, and begin sharing my crazy idea with others and get some feed-back. After all, I was pretty fired up about this issue by now. So I shared my idea with others. Some were skeptical, some were supportive, and some were indifferent. Did I expect anything else? By this time, I had received and was reading Chad's book, "From the Bottom Up" and as I read on, my confidence grew. If this kid right out of high school could accomplish what he had, with only a dream and a desire to begin with, maybe, just maybe, I could get the ball rolling on my idea. My confidence only grew stronger when I learned that 2010 was the 100th anniversary of The Boy Scouts of America. Wow! What an opportunity for me, if I could only get them on board with this clean-up scheme.

So, here I am, presenting to you a vision, a plea for assistance, and a rough outline for a grand adventure to include the complete "Rock River Valley", from Horicon, Wisconsin to Rock Island, Illinois.