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Friday, September 12, 2008

Acorns for tree-planting project


EAST MOLINE, Ill. - Living Lands & Waters, Chad Pregracke's nonprofit environmental organization, is looking for volunteers throughout the Midwest to help collect acorns for the Million Trees Project with a goal of collecting 300,000 seeds to plant in its nursery this fall.

The public's help is being sought to gather the seeds and test them to make sure they are viable -- no holes, no worms and no cracks. Instructions can be found on the LL&W Web site, www.livinglandsandwaters.org.

After growing for one to two years, the trees will be ready for planting in their native communities and along river shorelines.

The MillionTrees Project was initiated in September 2007 with the goal of growing 1 million native hardwood fruit- and nut-bearing trees over the next five to 10 years. The trees will provide many benefits, including creating habitat and a needed food source for wildlife and birds, reducing the amount of pollution entering waterways, reducing erosion, increasing overall biodiversity, reducing the impact of climate change, helping regulate water temperature, improving air quality and increasing aesthetics.

Anyone living in the Midwest is asked to mail acorns to: Living Lands & Waters, c/o MillionTrees Project, 17624 Route 84 N, East Moline, Ill. 61244.

Since LL&W's inception in 1998, Pregracke, his crew and thousands of volunteers have cleaned hundreds of miles of shoreline, planted thousands of trees and removed acres of invasive plant species along the Anacostia, Cedar, Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio, Potomac, Missouri and Wisconsin rivers. They have removed an estimated 5 million pounds of garbage and refuse from America's rivers.

For more information about the Million Trees Project, contact Denise Mitten at (309) 236-6279 (cell), (309) 496-9848 (office) or by e-mail at denise@livinglandsandwaters.org.

Article here
The painting is by Laura Tasheiko

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