Dude Over Troubled Water (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine August 2002

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Dude Over Troubled Water (Cont.)


	Mikes Mitts (Micheal McLaughlin)

IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE DUEY'S CORENR TAP, a busy workingman's bar on the riverfront in Port Byron, Illinois, a few towns upriver from Moline. Pregracke has come home to pick up an extra boat and attend a Saturday-morning meeting at which Alcoa will present its annual self-graded green report card to local enviros and citizens.

Tonight Chad is joining his parents, Gary, 60, and KeeKee, 57, for their end-of-the-week ritual of feasting on fried catfish and cheese fries. Tom Harper is also on hand. Rounding out the group, dressed head to toe in urban-wear black, is Lisa Eno, Chad's 27-year-old girlfriend.



	The bike crane: power by Yam (Micheal McLaughlin)

Gary is a retired high school teacher who spends his days and insomniac nights rehabbing a small ranch house that Chad recently purchased across the street from his parents' place. KeeKee runs the early childhood development program at nearby Black Hawk College, but she's also in charge of keeping Chad's operation running smoothly. She sits on his board, answers his e-mail, and schedules school visits. Chad says he phones her every day, but insists, "I am not a mama's boy!"

"You won't believe this, Chad," Gary says, debriefing his son on local news and gossip. "You know this lady who's running for governor of Illinois? Well, I just saw that one of her campaign promises is that she's going to clean the Illinois River!"

"Clean the Illinois River?" KeeKee says, exasperated. "Chad already cleaned the Illinois!"

"Yeah," says Chad. "We really cleaned the Illinois. It was totally trashed."

Harper changes the subject to operations on the Ohio. "Are the guys showering regularly?" he asks.



	Chad reeling in a big 'un (Micheal McLaughlin)

No, they're not: Yam hasn't showered in three weeks. "That's one of the things we wanted to put in the budget this year," Harper says. "We wanted to pay for one night at a motel a week, so these guys could take showers and sleep on a decent bed."

After dinner Chad heads off somewhere with Lisa, while I check out the headquarters of Living Lands and Waters: a bedroom turned office on the second floor of Gary and KeeKee's house. One wall of the office is covered with awards, including appreciations from the Rock Island Rotary Club and the Daughters of the American Revolution. There's also a signed photo from rock star Lenny Kravitz: "Chad, thanks for the inspiration." Kravitz phoned Pregracke after seeing him on CNN, invited him to a concert in Bloomington, Illinois, and then wrote a song inspired by his trash-picking work called, "Can We Find a Reason?"

"He was cool," says Pregracke. "But he's just a guy, you know what I mean?"

The next morning, when I meet up with Pregracke for the Alcoa meeting, he's looking sharp in pressed khakis, a button-down shirt, and, yes, the baseball cap. The Quad Cities environmental community—including fishermen, Ducks Unlimited guys, and Sierra Clubbers—has gathered at Alcoa's Davenport Works to hear about the company's record.

As they all probably know, Alcoa has black marks in its not-too-distant past. In 2000, as a result of pollution originating at its Warrick operations plant on the Ohio River, the company settled a lawsuit brought by the United States Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, agreeing to pay an $8.8 million penalty for violating the Clean Water Act. But according to Jen Hensley, 27, the Chicago-based grassroots coordinator for the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, the company is trying to do better. "They used to be one of the river's biggest polluters," she says, "but they've really cleaned up." Alcoa's Davenport plant, for example, has reduced toxic air emissions from 4.5 million pounds to 250,000 pounds in the last 13 years. Using a $13 million closed water system, it has reduced its intake from and release into the Mississippi by 90 percent.

Tim Wilkinson, Chad's Alcoa patron, is running today's meeting, and he starts off by reminding everyone that it's been a rough business year, which makes it harder to think green. "We're hoping that's going to turn around soon," he says. "We're committed to the environment, but it has to make economic sense. We're working on everything from reducing air emissions to using soy diesel in our factory vehicles, reducing our vehicle emissions by 30 to 60 percent."

Pregracke raises a hand.

"Yes, Chad?" Wilkinson says. "Can I pull our tug up to the factory and fill it up with some soy diesel?"

"That's a discussion we better have later," Wilkinson says, while the audience laughs. He continues with his slide show, clicking to a photo of Pregracke driving a trash-filled boat and looking a lot like Washington crossing the Delaware. Wilkinson suggests a round of applause. As it washes over the trash man, he hides under the brim of his cap, embarrassed just ever so slightly.

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