Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company
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. The company was based in Oak Brook, Illinois, but in October 2020 relocated its corporate headquarters to Houston, Texas.
Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company
US Vice President Joe Biden aboard Dredge 54 on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, 2014
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing dams, dikes, and other controls for streams and shorelines; and recovering valuable mineral deposits or marine life having commercial value. In all but a few situations the excavation is undertaken by a specialist floating plant, known as a dredger.
Excavator dredger in Neeme harbour, Estonia (April 2023)
Reconstruction of the mud-drag by Leonardo da Vinci (Manuscript E, folio 75 v.)
Reconstruction of the mud-drag
The dredge drag head of a suction dredge barge on the Vistula River in Warsaw, Poland