By Martha Jacob

Ripley residents and visitors to the beautiful river village enjoyed helping out and watching progress during the recent Ohio River Clean up which took place on the river Oct. 18 through Oct. 26 by the Living Lands & Waters non-profit organization.

Living Lands & Waters (LL&W) began in 1998 by Chad Pregracke and is dedicated to the beautification and restoration of America’s major rivers and the education of environmental issues.

The barge was parked on the Ripley docks for a couple weeks. “Ripley is such a wonderful river town,” said Pregracke, founder and president of LL&W. “Ripley is filled with a lot of great people and we’re always happy to come back.”

The group working cleaning up the river included 36 people from 17 different ‘In Good Company’ companies from all over the country.

The venture included educational river workshops which ran from July 19 beginning in Portsmouth working in South Point, Ironton, Wheelersburg, Lawrenceburg, IN, Newport and of course Ripley.

The workshops work to inspire high school students and foster a new appreciation for our nation;s rivers.

The trash that was picked up was hauled out on a barge and included:

• 55,679 lbs of garbage removed with the help of ‘In Good Company’ volunteers;

• 23,547 lbs removed with the help of John Deere Excavating;

• 4,747 lbs removed from Ripley community cleanups.

All total 83,973 lbs were cleaned up in just two weeks.

For more information on Living Lands & Waters, please contact Leah Cafarelli at (309) 236-0728 or visit www.livinglandsandwaters.org/events/.

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