[Yannick Pilon]

During a trip to Orlando for the Golf Industry Show, I played the International Course at Champion's Gate.

I was really intrigued by the Effluent Disposal Areas that surround the course.  Does anybody know how these work, and why they were built like this?  They appeared to me as huge eyesores and I really wonder why no effort has been made to make them look more natural, more attractive, if that's even possible!  Sufficient budget must have been available if they could hire Greg Norman to do the design....

Would anyone have any explanation for this?

Thanks

YP

[Ryan Farrow]

Ouch. That is some really awful stuff right there. Ive heard of constructed wetlands being used to treat effluent, just not in the U.S. I agree, this is really pathetic, and gives a bad image to something that is really a great idea and one that should be used more often on golf courses, albeit maybe a bit further out of play and definitely not looking like that.  I really don't understand what is going on there either. Is that supposed to filled up with water the majority of the time? Where does it flow to?

[jeffwarne]

matches the building behind it perfectly

[Bruce Katona]

sort of looks like a sandy bottom to a shallow lake....not terrible, but they could have done better..

The bigger question is:  Any Odor present?

[Yannick Pilon]

Ryan,

From what I understand, the water comes out of the structures you see in the middle of all three pictures, and then the water just infiltrates the ground.  Does it go straigth to the water table, or is it collected by an underground pipe system to another location, I have no idea?  But I would sure like to find out.

Most, if not all of these areas were raised higher than the fairways surrounding them, so you did not necessarily see them all day, unless you were playing pretty bad.  I beleive they can fill up to a few feet, as you can see on the measuring stick on the first picture.

You're also right saying this should probably be done more often, and it probably will one day.  I just hope it does not look like this most of the time....  However, there must be reasons for this look.

Bruce,

As far as I could tell, no odor was present when I played, although, when these areas are filled with water, I guess that might be a possibility.  Hope not, though....

YP

Bruce

[Ryan Farrow]

You would think it would go somewhere else. Ground water recharge wouldn't  make much sense in Orlando and especially with just a layer of Sand. There has to be some kind of mechanical system underneath to actually do some filtering before the water is released, wherever that may be. How deep is the water table in the Orlando area?

[Bruce Katona]

If you study hydrology, after "effluent" water passes thru a certain amount of sand (usuyally greater than 4 feet- depending on particle size and rate of infiltration), the "effluent" is ready to be recharged back into the groundwater system.....that's one of the reasons the why the ponds are there...

[RBlair]

That is right.  They are called ribs, or rapid infiltration basins.  They are used to put water quickly back into the Floridan Aquifer.  Amazing part is that they pull in water from all over Orange County.  I thought they were just used by Champion Gate, but they are used by all of Orlando.  I am not a water guy, but went there once while the course was being built years ago.

[Ryan Farrow]

So I did some reading, I'm pretty surprised I never heard of this.

This seems like a good description of how it works: http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~epados/septics/sand.htm

Bruce do you have any data on how high the water quality is after it passes through the system? It seems like these areas are on some kind of cycle where they are flooded, and then the water slowly percolates through the sand and then on, perhaps to an irrigation pond?

Thanks for the info Bruce.

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