White-Spunner Construction Wins Contract to Build "Green" Seafood Processing Plant in Bayou La Batre
Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Environmental Note:
Nearly $6 million plant for Gulf Coast Agricultural and Seafood Cooperative will be LEEDS Registered

Mobile, Alabama (May 25, 2010) - White-Spunner Construction Inc. has been awarded the contract to build the new “green” seafood processing facility in Bayou La Batre, Ala. for the Gulf Coast Agriculture and Seafood Cooperative.

The Mobile-based construction company will break ground on the nearly $6 million on Thursday (May 27). The plant is being built on 10 acres of a 95-acre site for the cooperative for the dehydration of crab and shrimp byproducts produced in the Bayou La Batre area.

The project will be LEED-registered (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) upon completion in January 2011.

The 13,000-square-foot facility will be a pre-engineered metal building employing state-of-the-art “green” practices to treat the by-products of the seafood processing industry and dispose of associated waste and fumes. Special structure features include a biogas processing system with anaerobic digesters, aerobic lagoons, bio-filters, concrete and steel retention tanks, methane gas bladders, candlestick flares and wetland restorations.

“White-Spunner Construction is pleased to have won the award for this important ‘green’ project,” said Seth Smith, WSC Project Manager. “Our company has a proven commitment to environmental-friendly construction. This facility will offer a unique opportunity to continue that commitment by building a LEED-registered ‘green’ structure that also employs innovative ‘green’ seafood processing and waste disposal practices.”

“The groundbreaking marks a great day for Bayou La Batre and the seafood industry,” said Walton Kraver, president of the Gulf Coast Agriculture and Seafood Cooperative and owner of Deep Sea Foods Inc., Jubilee Foods Inc., Malay Bay Inc. and Country Inc.

During peak seafood season, the 25 southwestern Alabama cooperative members pay to have 100 cubic yards of crab and shrimp waste hauled each day to a landfill, Kraver said. The new facility will allow the cooperative to use “green” practices to covert those seafood byproducts into marketable products such as animal feed, organic fertilizer and pottery, he said.

“We are taking a product that is damaging to the environment and we are treating the product in a very environmentally friendly way and transforming it into something we can sell, generating income for the industry as a whole, which consists of thousands of workers,” states Kraver. “This facility will serve the seafood industry for generations to come.”

White-Spunner Construction leads the way in LEED-certified environmental building, consistently receiving recognition for excellence in quality, safety and as well as building “green.”

The Mobile-based general contracting, design build and construction management company received the 2009 Excellence in Construction award for its LEED-certified headquarters in Mobile. Also in 2009, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) confirmed White-Spunner Construction’s self-built corporate headquarters meets LEED Silver certification standards. The 40,000-square-foot, two-story building has proven LEED efficiency with a 20 percent energy savings and 30 percent water savings from the company’s former business location.

White-Spunner also has been lauded in Louisiana for an environmental-friendly project that is nearing completion. Phase I of The Muses, an innovative urban residential development in Historic Central City New Orleans, La. boasts 211 apartment units in two, four-story buildings. The Muses will offer residents style, convenience and the opportunity to “live green” through its LEED-Silver designation—the first property of its kind to earn this bold designation in the state of Louisiana.