Environmental

The Great Lakes Group and its affil­i­at­ed com­pa­nies are com­mit­ted to poli­cies and new equip­ment that sup­port a sus­tain­able envi­ron­ment.  As a sig­nal to all, our Cleve­land Head­quar­ters flies our envi­ron­men­tal flag.  The so-called “Great Lakes Green Flag” which was specif­i­cal­ly designed for our com­pa­nies fea­tures the Cuya­hoga Riv­er, Lake Erie, and the “green” envi­rons of near­by Wendy Park.

The new ves­sels and equip­ment we con­struct or repair min­i­mize their envi­ron­men­tal impact through use of advanced diesel engines and asso­ci­at­ed equip­ment which are specif­i­cal­ly designed to reduce air emis­sions and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins.  Recy­clable mate­ri­als are also used in the con­struc­tion and pro­cure­ment process­es wher­ev­er possible.

The land now uti­lized by Great Lakes Ship­yard is locat­ed on the site of the old Amer­i­can Ship­build­ing Cor­po­ra­tion ship­yard from the ear­ly 1900s which oper­at­ed in the ear­ly 1900s with 100+-year old build­ings and struc­tures. The site was first iden­ti­fied as one of the top six nation­al “super­fund” sites, there­after reme­di­at­ed to a “Brown­field” site, and now, with fur­ther reme­di­a­tion, has been restored for indus­tri­al use or des­ig­nat­ed as “No Fur­ther Action,” the high­est stan­dard.  The rede­vel­op­ment of this sub­stan­tial water­front prop­er­ty into a pro­duc­tive ship­yard work place is quite an accom­plish­ment after being idled for many decades.

Our new head­quar­ters, the ship­yard facil­i­ties, and the Trav­elift incor­po­rate many sus­tain­able design ele­ments and con­struc­tion prac­tices that sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the neg­a­tive impact of indus­try on the envi­ron­ment through the incor­po­ra­tion of “GREEN” tech­nol­o­gy in their designs. The host of “GREEN” ini­tia­tives include a strin­gent Storm Water Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan; bulk­head­ing; a new san­i­tary sys­tem; rapid­ly deploy­able water­front con­tain­ment sys­tems; a bio-reten­tion basin and fil­tra­tion sys­tem for remov­ing sed­i­ments in water run-off which replen­ish­es the under­ground aquifer; use of recy­cled and recy­clable mate­ri­als; con­struc­tion waste man­age­ment; indoor air qual­i­ty man­age­ment; day­light­ing and tint­ed glass; pho­to light sen­sors to con­serve ener­gy; sil­ver roof­ing for reflec­tiv­i­ty; and sub­stan­tial land­scap­ing. Mind­ful of post 911 home­land secu­ri­ty require­ments and being co-locat­ed with the City of Cleveland’s Gar­rett A. Mor­gan Water Plant, the new facil­i­ties incor­po­rate dock and prop­er­ty out­door light­ing, secu­ri­ty fenc­ing, motion detec­tors, card swipes, remote cam­eras, and 24-hour mon­i­tor­ing that includes fire detec­tion and secu­ri­ty alarm systems.