diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index 6d63e2c1e..b37e91d68 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -14,8 +14,8 @@ Other changes:
 * Translate task logs a debug message specifying the number of files
   that it processed.  Bugzilla Report 13938.
 
-Changes from Ant 1.5.4 to Ant 1.6Beta1
-======================================
+Changes from Ant 1.5.4 to Ant 1.6
+=================================
 
 Changes that could break older environments:
 --------------------------------------------
@@ -79,6 +79,11 @@ Changes that could break older environments:
   is now Hashtable<String, String[]>). This will affect third party code
   that extend Copy and override Copy#doFileOperations.
 
+* <loadproperties> didn't expand properties while <property file="..."/>
+  does, so they were not equivalent.  This has been fixed, which means
+  that propetries may get expanded twice if you use an
+  <expandproperties> filterreader.  Bugzilla Report 17782.
+
 Fixed bugs:
 -----------
 * Filter readers were not handling line endings properly.  Bugzilla
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/LoadProperties.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/LoadProperties.java
index eb127879f..ef20d273e 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/LoadProperties.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/LoadProperties.java
@@ -140,6 +140,7 @@ public final class LoadProperties extends Task {
         FileInputStream fis = null;
         BufferedInputStream bis = null;
         Reader instream = null;
+        ByteArrayInputStream tis = null;
 
         try {
             final long len = srcFile.length();
@@ -166,7 +167,6 @@ public final class LoadProperties extends Task {
                     text = text + "\n";
                 }
 
-                ByteArrayInputStream tis = null;
                 if (encoding == null) {
                     tis = new ByteArrayInputStream(text.getBytes());
                 } else {
@@ -174,16 +174,11 @@ public final class LoadProperties extends Task {
                 }
                 final Properties props = new Properties();
                 props.load(tis);
-                final Enumeration e = props.keys();
-                while (e.hasMoreElements()) {
-                    final String key = (String) e.nextElement();
-                    final String value = props.getProperty(key);
-                    if (key != null && value != null
-                            && value.trim().length() > 0) {
-                        getProject().setNewProperty(key, value);
-                    }
-                }
-                tis.close();
+
+                Property propertyTask = 
+                    (Property) getProject().createTask("property");
+                propertyTask.setTaskName(getTaskName());
+                propertyTask.addProperties(props);
             }
 
         } catch (final IOException ioe) {
@@ -199,6 +194,13 @@ public final class LoadProperties extends Task {
             } catch (IOException ioex) {
                 //ignore
             }
+            try {
+                if (tis != null) {
+                    tis.close();
+                }
+            } catch (IOException ioex) {
+                //ignore
+            }
         }
     }