Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company is an American company providing construction services in
dredging and
land reclamation, currently the largest such provider in the United States. GLD&D operates primarily in the United States but conducts one-quarter of its business overseas. It is currently based in
Oak Brook, Illinois
Oak Brook is a village mostly in DuPage County with a small portion in Cook County in Illinois. Per the 2020 census, the population was 8,163. This suburb of Chicago has the headquarters of several companies and organizations including Ace Ha ...
, but in October 2020 the company announced the move of its corporate headquarters to
Houston, Texas.
History
The company was founded in 1890 as the partnership of
William A. Lydon &
Fred C. Drews and was named Lydon & Drews dredging company. Early projects included the shoreline structures for the
Chicago's Columbian Exposition. The company soon had satellite operations throughout the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
. It was renamed the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company (GLD&D) in 1905. Between 1900 and 1950, GLD&D undertook major projects such as the
Sabin Lock, straightening of the
Chicago River
The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for ...
west of the
Chicago Loop
The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...
, the Michigan Avenue Bridge, foundation landfill and reclamation of the area where the
Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum,
Soldier Field
Soldier Field is a multi-purpose stadium on the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1924 and reconstructed in 2003, the stadium has served as the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) since ...
,
Meigs Field
Merrill C. Meigs Field Airport (pronounced , formerly ) was a single-runway airport in Chicago that was in operation from December 1948 until March 2003 on Northerly Island, an artificial peninsula on Lake Michigan. The airport sat adjacent to ...
and
Field Museum of Natural History stand today in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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and harbor work for the
Naval Station Great Lakes.
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, GLD&D constructed the
MacArthur Lock. After the Second World War, GLD&D participated in extensive
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
-related
dredging in the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...
. In 1979, Great Lakes International Inc. (GLI) was included as a holding company for GLD&D. From 1985 to 1998, GLI was acquired by several companies to include ITEL Corporation,
Blackstone Dredging Partners and Vectura Holding Company (
Citigroup) until being purchased by
Madison Dearborn Partners
Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) is an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts of privately held or publicly traded companies, or divisions of larger companies; recapitalizations of family-owned or closely held companies; ba ...
in 2003 for $340 million.
It was spun off a publicly traded company on NASDAQ in 2006 after the Madison's
special-purpose acquisition company Aldabra Acquisition Corp merged with it. Aldabra in turn changed its name to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock. Madison sold the last of its shares in 2009.
1992 Chicago flood
In 1992, a barge operated by GLD&D was driving new pilings for the
Kinzie Street Bridge
The Kinzie Street Bridge is a single-leaf bascule bridge built in 1909 that spans the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Incidents
In April 1992, rehabilitation work on the pilings for the bridge damaged a freight tunn ...
in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
when it accidentally punched into an unused service tunnel passing beneath the river at that point. The tunnel flooded, in turn flooding the basements of many buildings in downtown Chicago; the event is commonly known as the
Chicago Flood. Work on the bridge was actually completed the prior year October, 1991. In February 1992 local cable company technicians discovered the breach and reported it to city officials. GLD&D was never made aware of the breach until April 1992 after severe leakage into the tunnel system had begun.
The work performed on the Kinzie Street Bridge conformed to specifications and did pass City inspection upon completion in 1991.
In the lawsuits that followed Great Lakes was initially found liable but was later cleared after it was revealed that the city was aware the tunnel was leaking before the flood and the city had also not properly maintained the tunnel.
In addition the case went the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
in which ruled that since the work was being done by a vessel in navigable waters of the Chicago River,
Admiralty law applied and Great Lakes liability was greatly limited.
2008 Liberian tanker collision
In January 2008, the 117 ft. Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company mechanical dredge New York was struck by a 669-ft Liberian-flagged
orange juice
Orange juice is a liquid extract of the orange tree fruit, produced by squeezing or reaming oranges. It comes in several different varieties, including blood orange, navel oranges, valencia orange, clementine, and tangerine. As well as vari ...
tank vessel named the Orange Sun in
Newark Bay. Newark Bay had to be closed for five hours by the
U.S. Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...
until damages to the GLD&D dredge were mitigated. The dredge had begun to take on water and a diving crew was sent in order to make repairs. In December 2009, the
National Transportation Safety Board issued a report that blamed the Orange Sun for the accident. The Orange Sun's master had not informed the captain or crew about the ship's tendency to deviate from its course.
Jersey Shore
The company was hired to build dunes and berms along 22 miles of the
Jersey Shore damaged by
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...
.
Operations
Great Lakes Dredge and Dock conducts most of its operations within the United States and 25% of its operations abroad, particularly in the Middle East. GLD&D dredging operations consist of deepening and maintaining waterways, shipping channels, and ports; creating and maintaining (re-nourishing) beaches; excavating new harbors; reclaiming land in the water or improving low-lying land areas; restoring aquatic and wetland habitats and excavating pipeline, cable and tunnel trenches.
In 1990, GLD&D renewed its overseas efforts and created a foreign division. By 1993, GLD&D was awarded significant projects in the Middle East. Soon projects in Europe, Africa, Mexico and South America would begin as well. GLD&D also provided excavation and reclamation for the
Oresund Bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden.
In 2003, GLD&D performed dredging of the
Umm Qasr
Umm Qasr ( ar, أم قصر, also transliterated as ''Um-qasir'', ''Um-qasser, Um Qasr'') is a port city in southern Iraq. It stands on the canalised Khawr az-Zubayr, part of the Khawr Abd Allah estuary which leads to the Persian Gulf. It is se ...
Port in Iraq. GLD&D also constructed a port in
Hidd,
Bahrain
Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...
around the same time.
In June 2010, GLD&D under the
Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Group began constructing sand berms off the
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
coast to limit the amount of approaching oil in the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...
from the
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill (also referred to as the "BP oil spill") was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considere ...
.
Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation Begins Work on First Sand Berm off the Louisiana Coast
/ref>
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Great Lakes region (U.S.)
Economy of the Midwestern United States
Economy of the Northeastern United States
Private equity portfolio companies
Madison Dearborn Partners companies
Dredging companies
Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1890
Companies listed on the Nasdaq
1890 establishments in Illinois