Colorado River water restrictions coming in 2022

[John Emerson]

My problem with all of this is that golf is at the bottom of the list of who to blame.  Water that people drink, and golf uses for irrigation of greens and tees is a drop in the bucket to what farmers use.  We had or have no business making a desert the backbone of majority of society’s food commodities.  What’s done is done.  All we can do is just use it until we lose it. We will lose it..sooner than later.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom,


I am completely aware on the revenue that is made during the winter, and why GMs and management companies insist on overseeding.  I just feel like eventually, as you mentioned either water costs are going to be so high it doesn't make financial sense to overseed, or clubs are going to realize all the savings they have on their budget by not overseeding compared to the slight hit they might take in round costs by being a course not overseeded.

During the months of Dec-Feb we make 36% of our overall revenue in green fees.  If you want to extend out for the full overseed season of Oct-March it is 64% of the revenue. 

I did a big detailed report on the difference in costs of overseeding versus not a couple of years ago.  To not overseed a golf course with normal acreage results in a savings of $340k.
That savings comes from (less fertilizer, less chemicals, no seed costs, less fuel, less repair and maintenance on machines, costs of water savings from grow in of the rye, and grow in of the bermuda in the spring, and the big one is 18 days of more revenue by not having to close for overseed)

As for the paints, yes Endurant is the popular one out here also.  Many new vendors are trying their hand in it right now though with better price points.  Scottsdale National does Endurant throughout the winter depending on need.  If you want it too look dark you probably need an application every 28 days.  If you don't mind the slightly off color look you could stretch it to 40 days depending on weather.  The expectation is that you would need about 3-4 full apps of paint to get through the winter months.

Peter:


Thanks for these numbers, they are by far the best I've seen on this topic.  I'm actually surprised that the revenue numbers are not more skewed to the winter season.


But, at the end of the day, I do not believe that rational economic arguments will be enough to turn the tide of overseeding, just like they don't work for conservation or fossil fuel consumption or just about anything else.  I think it would require government intervention, and as recently demonstrated, our government cannot act in unison even in the face of total annihilation.

[Tom_Doak]

We probably shouldn't be building golf courses in deserts ...

A long held belief of mine, but not of the leading golf architects' association.

And as I read this, I can't quite make myself believe what is so obviously true: ie that the wastefulness & excess all comes down to golfers simply not wanting to play on dormant turf, ever.

My goodness.

Peter well said.  Also if you look at the prolonged drought conditions for California and the surrounding area, there isn't a big difference between what has traditionally been "desert" and the rest of the state. Climates change and whether we recognize it or not that region which could be classified as a "desert" in the coming decades. I think 10 inches or less if a common definition, but also you have to factor in evaporation (warmer temps), which magnifies the issue.

As opposed to debating the cause of the problem (global warming), which California can't fix themselves, they have to deal with the affects which is low amounts of rainfall and higher temps. Desalination has been and will continue to be a big part of that solution. Although energy intensive and brine producing, what other option do you have under your control? The costs have gone down in the last 2 decades and if you treat brackish water as opposed to straight saltwater you have less energy needed and less brine produced.

Now this is not a golf course problem, this is a sustainable issue for human habitation. A much higher priority than green grass would be sustaining the farming industry (i.e. almonds and grapes). Irrigating rough should have been eliminated years ago IMO and the desert courses particularly would be wise to eliminate that grass totally and bring back the desert landscape if they already don't have it as a part of their features. AZ same issue, but they don't have the water desalination access and much more dependent on the Colorado River water. Also Las Vegas gets almost all of it from Lake Mead, but they are much closer to the source. 

So yes we care about golf courses here, but this problem has effects several levels up in priority.

Desalination is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem, unless you are making it all work via tidal power or something.

[Rob Marshall]

"Desalination is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem, unless you are making it all work via tidal power or something"


Tom,
Could you please explain this? Are you saying that the energy used by desalination plants outweighs the benefit of the fresh water?
From a golf course perspective in southern coastal area's where salt and brackish water is available isn't Paspalum a potential solution. I've heard you can water it with salt water.

[John Emerson]

"Desalination is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem, unless you are making it all work via tidal power or something"


Tom,
Could you please explain this? Are you saying that the energy used by desalination plants outweighs the benefit of the fresh water?
From a golf course perspective in southern coastal area's where salt and brackish water is available isn't Paspalum a potential solution. I've heard you can water it with salt water.

You can water anything with salt water.  The problem is two fold.  1, some plants have higher tolerance to salt in the soil than others ie:paspalum.  2, Watering with salt water builds up in the soil and will eventually make it inhospitable for plants at certain concentrations.  The only way to rid the soil of salt is with excessive amounts of fresh water, or rain.  So, your statement saying you can water paspalum with salt water is somewhat true, but what happens if it builds up and you’re not able to flush the salt out?  Let’s put it this way…you’re going to lose grass quickly.

[Wayne_Kozun]

"Desalination is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem, unless you are making it all work via tidal power or something"


Tom,
Could you please explain this? Are you saying that the energy used by desalination plants outweighs the benefit of the fresh water?
From a golf course perspective in southern coastal area's where salt and brackish water is available isn't Paspalum a potential solution. I've heard you can water it with salt water.

Yes, exactly.  If you use solar or wind to generate the power needed what is wrong with it?  Assuming that you can desalinate the water and store it for a period of time, wouldn't this also allow you to deal with the intermittency issue with solar and wind?
There is a desal plant in Sydney, Aus.  The power to drive this plant is supposed to come from nearby wind generation - but presumably this will displace other users of wind power on the MSW grid.  The plant has actually not operated for most of its life as it hasn't been needed.

[Wayne_Kozun]

You can water anything with salt water.  The problem is two fold.  1, some plants have higher tolerance to salt in the soil than others ie:paspalum.  2, Watering with salt water builds up in the soil and will eventually make it inhospitable for plants at certain concentrations.  The only way to rid the soil of salt is with excessive amounts of fresh water, or rain.  So, your statement saying you can water paspalum with salt water is somewhat true, but what happens if it builds up and you’re not able to flush the salt out?  Let’s put it this way…you’re going to lose grass quickly.

Are there not courses operating that use salt water for irrigation of paspalum?  I thought that this was the case with courses in the caribbean.
Here is a USGA document on this issue that discusses Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, FL  https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/images/course-care/water-resource-center/watersummitarticles/214424%20Hiers%2C%20Tim%20-%20Irrigation%20with%20a%20Toxin.pdf

[Joe Hancock]

You can water anything with salt water.  The problem is two fold.  1, some plants have higher tolerance to salt in the soil than others ie:paspalum.  2, Watering with salt water builds up in the soil and will eventually make it inhospitable for plants at certain concentrations.  The only way to rid the soil of salt is with excessive amounts of fresh water, or rain.  So, your statement saying you can water paspalum with salt water is somewhat true, but what happens if it builds up and you’re not able to flush the salt out?  Let’s put it this way…you’re going to lose grass quickly.

Are there not courses operating that use salt water for irrigation of paspalum?  I thought that this was the case with courses in the caribbean.
Here is a USGA document on this issue that discusses Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, FL  https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/images/course-care/water-resource-center/watersummitarticles/214424%20Hiers%2C%20Tim%20-%20Irrigation%20with%20a%20Toxin.pdf

Florida( and the Caribbean) gets frequent heavy rains, doing the work of flushing salts through soils, usually sandy. That isn’t the case in most desert scenarios.

[John Emerson]

You can water anything with salt water.  The problem is two fold.  1, some plants have higher tolerance to salt in the soil than others ie:paspalum.  2, Watering with salt water builds up in the soil and will eventually make it inhospitable for plants at certain concentrations.  The only way to rid the soil of salt is with excessive amounts of fresh water, or rain.  So, your statement saying you can water paspalum with salt water is somewhat true, but what happens if it builds up and you’re not able to flush the salt out?  Let’s put it this way…you’re going to lose grass quickly.

Are there not courses operating that use salt water for irrigation of paspalum?  I thought that this was the case with courses in the caribbean.
Here is a USGA document on this issue that discusses Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, FL  https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/images/course-care/water-resource-center/watersummitarticles/214424%20Hiers%2C%20Tim%20-%20Irrigation%20with%20a%20Toxin.pdf

Of course there are clubs using brackish water for irrigation.  It makes managing fine turf all the more difficult…like supers needed more to worry about.  Just because one can doesn’t mean one should.  The bottom line is that growing ANYTHING in a desert is horrible horrible idea.

[Tom_Doak]

"Desalination is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem, unless you are making it all work via tidal power or something"


Tom,
Could you please explain this? Are you saying that the energy used by desalination plants outweighs the benefit of the fresh water?
From a golf course perspective in southern coastal area's where salt and brackish water is available isn't Paspalum a potential solution. I've heard you can water it with salt water.

You still have to remove a lot of the salt from sea water before you can use it for irrigation on Paspalum.  At the one project where that was the approach, the defunct Bay of Dreams, it cost about $100,000 per month to keep the water turned on.  That's why the course did not survive for long when the recession came and they couldn't sell real estate.


My comment was more general.  On the level of one project, yes, desal is an option, though the cost number above should give you some pause as to whether it's a sustainable option.  For a backup water system for a big city, I'm sure it would be great to have.  But as a water "solution" for a big city or for civilization, the idea of "powering our way out of it" with the status quo just reminds me of the final scene of Thelma and Louise.

[Steve Lang]

   The largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere in Carlsbad, CA makes about 50 million gallons per day of drinking water for $0.005 per gal from the pacific ocean feed.  Its been running for about 5 years now.



I worked on very large chemical plant project in the middle east that made desalinated water for $0.006 per gallon.  The irrigation spec for the green belt areas was 1500 parts per million total dissolved solids, feed water spec was about 45,000 part per million.


These are industrial world scale projects that can be easily repeated if there's the desire and an ocean shoreline nearby...

[Kalen Braley]

  The largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere in Carlsbad, CA makes about 50 million gallons per day of drinking water for $0.005 per gal from the pacific ocean feed.  Its been running for about 5 years now.

I worked on very large chemical plant project in the middle east that made desalinated water for $0.006 per gallon.  The irrigation spec for the green belt areas was 1500 parts per million total dissolved solids, feed water spec was about 45,000 part per million.

These are industrial world scale projects that can be easily repeated if there's the desire and an ocean shoreline nearby...

Steve,

Are those operating costs per gallon once the facility is up and running?  Or does that calculate in infrastructure, build costs, ongoing maintenance, etc?

[Tom_Doak]

  The largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere in Carlsbad, CA makes about 50 million gallons per day of drinking water for $0.005 per gal from the pacific ocean feed.  Its been running for about 5 years now.

If you meant half a cent per gallon, that sounds great phrased that way.  But at a million gallons per day for golf course irrigation in a desert environment, that could also be phrased as $5000 per day, or $150k per month.

[Peter Ferlicca]

Peter -


Have you looked at the grass that Desert Mountain used for Renegade and Seven? What do you think of it if you have? My impression is that it has held up well through 2 summers and last summer was high stress. I was told it's a bent variety. Desert Forest used to have bent fairways a long time ago - maybe it's a modification of that?

Desert Mountain is a fantasyland for how they manage turf.  Having a crew of 30-35 guys on each course, plus having extended closure times on each course makes it a different ballgame. 
Regarding Renegade and Seven, they are doing bent grass fairways with fescue rough, this only would work in north carefree which it is located in due to the higher elevation and cooler nights in the summer time.  There is no way a property could do that in the valley.  Also it requies a ton of water to keep it alive during the summer, hence why they close it down from July-August.  They also have to spray wall to wall fungicides to prevent disease pressure.  Both of those things cost a lot of money, something a VERY high end private club can do, but that is about it.  They also have 2 courses that are at the top of the mountain that they just hold onto the Rye year round and don't even bother with transition since it is cool enough.  I think they are only overseeding 3 of the courses now, as opposed to all 6 in the past. 




I am surprised no one has tried zoysia out here yet.  We had a test plot of zeon zoysia when I was at wickenburg ranch and it held its color throughout the winter even up there.  That seems to be the best option IMO for a turf that doesn't need to be overseeded. 




With regards to water with salt water, TRUST ME we already deal with a ton of salts with hardly any rain.  There is no way we could grow grass out here if we did that.  I water with reclaimed water that already has salts and chlorine in it.  We went 15 months without any significant rain from 2020 to 2021 and all kinds of guys were getting hit hard with rapid blight, which is caused by salt loads accumulating from not having a good flush of rainfall. 

[SB]

Peter:


Thanks for these numbers, they are by far the best I've seen on this topic.  I'm actually surprised that the revenue numbers are not more skewed to the winter season.

The biggest revenue months are Jan-April, even though courses get overseeded well before that.  Most courses that I know get over half of their revenue in those 4 months.  Fall can be a nice time, but rates are higher after the new year.

[Steve Lang]

  The largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere in Carlsbad, CA makes about 50 million gallons per day of drinking water for $0.005 per gal from the pacific ocean feed.  Its been running for about 5 years now.

I worked on very large chemical plant project in the middle east that made desalinated water for $0.006 per gallon.  The irrigation spec for the green belt areas was 1500 parts per million total dissolved solids, feed water spec was about 45,000 part per million.

These are industrial world scale projects that can be easily repeated if there's the desire and an ocean shoreline nearby...

Steve,

Are those operating costs per gallon once the facility is up and running?  Or does that calculate in infrastructure, build costs, ongoing maintenance, etc?

Kalen,
Carlsbad costs can't speak for, value from their website, have to imagine its an all in type cost ... ? costs at different user's water meters.


For my project, that cost I quoted (actually $0.00568/gal or $1.50 per cubic meter) was a contract cost at the battery limits of the water treatment plant, so it would include capital recovery and normal operating & maintenance costs over the 25 year design life of those facilities.  It does not include the transfer piping infrastructure, which was a separate cost center for the project.  For a $30,000,000,000 project, utility water piping costs were many millions for distribution over 2700 acre site, but were pretty small percentage of things in end.

[Steve Lang]

  The largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere in Carlsbad, CA makes about 50 million gallons per day of drinking water for $0.005 per gal from the pacific ocean feed.  Its been running for about 5 years now.

If you meant half a cent per gallon, that sounds great phrased that way.  But at a million gallons per day for golf course irrigation in a desert environment, that could also be phrased as $5000 per day, or $150k per month.

YEP


~ quarter inch a day of desal water, over ~ 150 acres is going to cost you, if you can get such a contract cost at your water meter

[Jeff Schley]

  The largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere in Carlsbad, CA makes about 50 million gallons per day of drinking water for $0.005 per gal from the pacific ocean feed.  Its been running for about 5 years now.

If you meant half a cent per gallon, that sounds great phrased that way.  But at a million gallons per day for golf course irrigation in a desert environment, that could also be phrased as $5000 per day, or $150k per month.

YEP


~ quarter inch a day of desal water, over ~ 150 acres is going to cost you, if you can get such a contract cost at your water meter

In the ME even the ground water is very salty and needs to be treated in RO plants. It is a reality of the region for fresh water. The more salt that is removed the more "sweet" it is. Treated water is commonly referred to as "sweet". Even in our homes you may only have "sweet" water coming into a drinking faucet at the sink. Everything else is throttled back in terms of treatment. In company housing some people try and cut into the "sweet" line to go throughout the house. If caught (and some are) it is a fire able offense. There just isn't the same level of convenience in many countries to turn a tap and expect water you can drink.

[John Emerson]

It’s happening. Golfing communities in the desert are starting to worry.  They should be worried. 


https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvavd/pipeline-to-water-golf-courses-in-drought-stricken-west-is-uss-stupidest-project

[Kalen Braley]

Here in Utah, small towns have been feeling it for awhile.  After a few close calls, this one has run out.  Combine that with the hotter temps in the now increasingly more shallow lakes... toxic algae blooms are quickly getting far worse.

fox13now.com/news/utah-drought/scofield-runs-out-of-drinking-water

[Jeff Schley]

Here in Utah, small towns have been feeling it for awhile.  After a few close calls, this one has run out.  Combine that with the hotter temps in the now increasingly more shallow lakes... toxic algae blooms are quickly getting far worse.

fox13now.com/news/utah-drought/scofield-runs-out-of-drinking-water

Now factor in the all too imminent lack of hydro electric power, due to the low water level of dammed rivers and that 9-10% of electrical power to the grid could vanish as well. The domino effect is quite depressing. I believe AZ is or was considering building a desal plant on the gulf of mexico to make a deal with Mexico for their portion of the Colorado River water. Divert Mexico's portion farther up the river to AZ. In turn AZ would build the desal plant for Mexico to get their portion. Yes Mexico was a party to the treaty for water rights.

[Jason Hines]

Has anyone been able to find the outflow data of Lake Mead over the last 20-30 years?  Has it remained static and if it has increased, by how much?


I am having a hard time finding it to compare to the inflows from Lake Powell.

[Kalen Braley]

As the water conditions in the West continue to go from awful to horrific...

On the bright side, they'll be able to solve some missing person cases.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61385811

[John Emerson]

I feel like the catastrophic moment is close and millions are going to be left holding the biggest bag of crap in USA history. Call me a pessimist, but people have buried their heads in the sand for too long and it’s going from bad to worse

[Mark Kiely]

I feel like the catastrophic moment is close and millions are going to be left holding the biggest bag of crap in USA history. Call me a pessimist, but people have buried their heads in the sand for too long and it’s going from bad to worse

You've posted in this thread about six times stating how stupid it is that civilization exists in deserts. Do you have any solutions to propose or do you want to essentially keep posting, "I told you so" over and over? I'm genuinely curious because you seem to know quite a bit about soils and growing conditions. Short of walling off and relocating the southwestern U.S., what's the solution?