Dredging Contractor Shares Government Honors

Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company has been notified its project team for the Boston Harbor Navigation Improvement Project has been named to receive a Hammer Award from Vice-President Al Gore. The Hammer Awards are presented by Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government to recognize achievements in partnerships between governmental agencies and the private sector. The team honored is comprised of Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, Massachusetts Port Authority, the USACE, the Massachusettes Department of Environmental Protection and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management. The team is being honored for its approach to dredging two major shipping channels - Boston Harbor and the Cape Cod Canal - which resulted in a direct savings of $1.5 million to taxpayers, as well as significant environmental benefits. These benefits were achieved by consolidating the work required under two projects into one. The project to dredge Boston Harbor, which had already been awarded to Great Lakes, included a component which required sand capping of disposal pits. Another project in the planning stage required the dredging of 200,000 cu. yards of clean sand from nearby Cape Cod Canal. The project team worked together to cut red tape. As a result, Great Lakes dredged the Cape Cod Canal at no cost to the government and Boston Harbor got the sand it needed, all without the need for a separate contract. An award ceremony is planned for late February.