Marina Dock Age

While most marina managers aren’t sure how successful their marinas will be in 2010, this New Year has already been a success for Hammond Marina, a 918-slip facility in Hammond, Ind. That’s because on Jan. 11, Hammond Marina was designated as Indiana’s first Clean Marina. Although Hammond Marina just won this award, the marina has always taken steps to protect the environment.

Environmental protector

Even before Hammond Marina was designated as a Clean Marina, the facility took care to protect Lake Michigan. Hammond Marina offered its customers recycling bins for hazardous materials, such as batteries and used oil, to keep dangerous chemicals from getting in the lake.

The marina hired a company to come and pick these materials up and properly recycle them and also offered recycling services for shrink wrap, glass, and metal. Hammond City crews pick up those recyclables.

Hammond Marina also built a fish cleaning station for fishermen where they clean their fish and dispose of the unwanted fish parts. An environmental service picks up those fish parts and disposes of them properly. Offering a fish cleaning station keeps fishermen from dumping the fish bodies back in Lake Michigan, which spreads diseases.

To keep pollutants out of the water, the marina planted vegetative buffer zones to filter any runoff rain water before it went back into the lake. The marina also used small suction containers when fueling to keep any fuel from overflowing into the water. Finally the marina offered four pumpouts, which it required boaters to use instead of dumping their sewage into the water.

When the Indiana Clean Marina Program started through the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in May 2008, Hammond Marina Harbormaster Keith Carey and Marina Director Bill Hill, CMM, said the marina already qualified for designation by meeting 80 percent of the required points.

However, both men said they wanted to meet 100 percent of the requirements. So Hammond Marina worked with DNR and other Indiana marinas to help grow the Clean Marina program while making minor facility changes to meet every requirement.

Getting certified

The biggest change that Hammond Marina needed to make before being designated as a Clean Marina was it had to install a proper boat washing station. Boaters were simply washing their boats at the launch ramp, and the waste water was going back into Lake Michigan without any filtering process.

Hammond Marina used its contracted plumbers to build the wash station, which consisted of cutting a rectangle in the parking lot, adding the filter to remove solids from the wash water, and connecting it up to the municipal sewer system where the wash water would go.

The same company that takes the solids from the fish cleaning station also takes solids removed from the wash water and disposes of it properly. The wash station also includes signage and a pressure washer to clean off the boats.

While qualifying for designation, Hammond Marina also expanded its recycling area to recycle bad gasoline and antifreeze so boaters had an option besides putting it in the trash or in Lake Michigan. Finally, Hammond Marina color-coded its drains so customers and staff would know which drains empty into the lake and which drains empty into the sewer system. 

A Clean Marina

Hammond Marina was designated as a Clean Marina, a first in the state of Indiana, and it even met 100 percent of the needed requirements. Now both Hill and Carey hope this designation will help them fill their slips. But both men admit that getting this certification wasn’t just about increasing business. “We want the lake to be as clean as possible for ourselves and our customers,” said Hill.

Rob Preston is Managing Editor of Marina Dock Age. He can be reached by phone at 847/647-2900 ext. 1311 or via e-mail at rpreston@prestonpub.com.