Water usage

[JohnV]

Taking some facts from Geoff's new book and doing a little research on the Internet, I figured out the following fact you can use on anyone who complains about how much water golf courses use.

There is enough water in Lake Tahoe to water all the golf courses in America for the 159 YEARS.

Or enough water flows by New Orleans in the Mississippi in one year to water them for 170 YEARS.

There are approximately 1 million irrigated acres on golf courses.  There are around 300 million irrigated acres of farm land (1990 figure).  There are 30 million acres of lawns in America.  All told there are 50 millions acres of turfgrass, so only 2% of all turf grass in America is on golf courses.

[A_Clay_Man]

And how many of those are in water restriction zones? Not many I bet.

I know of one course in a water restriction zone that puts down 2m gal.'s a night.

[Steve Lang]

 

Hey Adam,

Given an acre-inch of water is ~27,152 gallons,..

Irrigating 60 acres of golf course with 1 inch of water = 1,629,144 gallons..

Perhaps (or maybe not) more interesting is that if they pumped that 2 mil gallons in 8 hours, thats 4167 gallons per minute..

If they pumped from a 300 ft deep well, they need ~ 500 hp pump/motor and if electric is at $0.05 per kWh, it cost ~$275 to just lift that water, let alone to push it through the system pipes and spray it out on the ground.., if it was a 50 foot deep well the lift cost was around $45..  

[A_Clay_Man]

Well Steve, if you doubt my numbers, I'd can tell you that this property is all inclusive and is known as an engineering marvel. Combine that with the high et rates and you have it.

Nudge nudge wink wink say no more

[John_McMillan]

John,

Count me on the side of golf courses, but playing straw-man against your arguments, I'd point out two things -

 (1)  Backyard turfgrass typically does not receive the same degree of water as putting greens, tees and fairways.  But then people aren't paying $50 to putt on my backyard.

 (2)  The biggest uses of golf course water are in the driest climates.  Crystal Downs (Frankfort, MI) and Shadow Creek (Las Vegas, NV) may have similar acreages of maintained turf, but I don't even have to check to know which one uses more irrigated water.  

[Steve Lang]

 

Adam,

I don't doubt the numbers

[JohnV]

Adam, according to Geoff's numbers the average golf course in America only uses 18 million gallons of water a year.  2 million a night seems like a lot.

[Forrest Richardson]

John M. — To set the record straight, backyard lawns probably receive an excess of water to that of golf greens as they are typically unmanaged; set with timers for too long of periods and not integrated to moisture or rainfall sensors.

Perhaps the most important aspect of golf courses and water is the fact that golf courses return water to where it naturally belongs: In the ground. They serve as filtration fields, filtering run-off from rooftops and streets before returning this water to the ground. And...they use re-use water in many locales.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Thanks to Geoff for the new information.  I had clipped an acreage comparison out of a magazine years ago, but it is now sadly outdated.  However, its funny that people pick on golf course useage, thinking that cutting golf irrigation would solve all are water problems, when it totals 2% of area (which of course to some equals one whole state, like Delaware....) and less than that of the total water used for ground cover.

I can tell you that whenever we have evaluated a golf site that was agriculture, water useage for the course would be about 1/3 of the former ag use.

I have also read stories/stats that 80% of all fresh water useage in this country goes to agriculture, with 20% for all other urban uses, inlcuding baths (don't cut there, please!) and irrigation.  As John says, home lawns - which could easily be things like Buffalograss here in Texas to reduce water use - typially recieve both more water than they need, and comprise a very large area.  

At a recent Texas Turfgrass Conference,  I saw an Texas A and M study showing how much of a lawns water use actually goes to trees - trees use water far more than turf, but you don't see the average citizen complaining about those, do you?  In fact, most cities have tree ordinances requiring the vertical water guzzlers, and the hotter the city, the more they require, even as they put in turf water restrictions.  The desire for shade is understandable, but this could be a good fact to use for those of you who favor fewer trees on the play corridors of your golf course!

I know that golf courses in the Philly area are limited to 16 million gallons a year.  In Atlanta, the daily average use would be about 300,000 gallons, and in Texas about 400,000, with more in summer and less in winter.  Many courses here do use 1 million gallons a day in August, but none in January undre normal conditions.  

So, water use varies by climate. And perception varies inversely to the truth in many cases!

[JakaB]

Thanks to Geoff for the information that may allow our courses to stay good and wet.....I'd order more copies of his book if I didn't think they would just keep printing them..

[A_Clay_Man]

Ok, Everybody close their eyes and imagine this:



Trees being the real culprit, no doubt. The tree budget was, at the last minute, tripled.

[Steve Lang]

 
It began as a dream,.. go to one of the dryest places on the north american continent, and build a golf garden..

yeh baby, las vegas

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Speaking of trees....I play on a course filled with several thousand Oak trees.  I have been told that each Oak requires 50 gallons of water per day.  

With all of that competition, no wonder we have trouble achieving a consistent quality of turf.  Do I have permission to cut em down?

Forrest, does a green cut at 90/1000s of an inch require more or less water than my lawn cut to 1.5 inches?

[JakaB]

Where is this argument going and what is the point...I thought 15,995 courses in the country were already over watered...What happened to the Augusta Syndrom you people are always all up in ears about...

[Jim_Kennedy]

JakaB,
It's all about perception of whether golf is too wasteful of  resources. It's not easy to overcome, especially when you look at how much they do use.
A private course w/350 members that sprays 18mil gals. per year(the quoted average)on its course is using 51,428 gals per member/per season. That's about the equivalent of 3 backyard swimming pools per member. If that same course does 25k rounds it's 720 gals per round. Move that course to the southwest where some courses use 90mil gals per year for 50k rounds and the number becomes 1,800 gals per round.

Those numbers won't create any warm and fuzzy feelings in anyone who thinks golf courses use too much water.

[Steve Lang]

 

Methinks this "average" being quoted is skewed between the small number of big users in dry climes and the opposite, the large numbers of small users in areas that need little water other than in dead of summer.  

What is the median usage?

[JohnV]

Steve, I don't know because Geoff only gave us the average for all courses.  But, he also writes that the average for the 113 courses around Palm Springs is 26.5 million gallons.  So, they use 47% more water than the average.

[Jim_Kennedy]

JohnV,
I think the Palm Springs figure you quoted from Geoff's book could only be the per day use for all the courses. The average for courses in Rhode Island is 15mil gals per season.

The Desert Water Agency says average use for all courses in Palm Springs is 7ac.ft./ per yr./ per acre of grass. One acre foot of water is 325,851 gals so that's 2,280,957 gals per acre/ per year, or a little over 52 gals per sq. foot/ per year or just a little over a pint per day/per sq foot..
Seven ac.ft per year is 148,262,205 gals. if you are watering 65 acres of grass per course and 205,286,130 gals at 90 acres per course.

[munson]

My niece is coming home from school for Spring Break. She has been corrupted by the extreme liberal bias of her professors-- meaning she thinks golf courses are environmental disasters. Wasting water for the pleasure of the rich, poisoning the land chemicals, cutting down trees, destroying dunes-- that's what I am likely to hear from her.

Anyone have more stats and facts I can use? She doesn't believe that golf courses preserve open space.

[A_Clay_Man]

Jim- They water much more than just the turf. So, 65 acres seems small.

I heard a rumor, there was meeting last year at the local CC. The speaker was a turf guy from one of the NM universities. He stated that the optimal amount of water to put down on our cool season grasses, with our et rates, was 1-1 1/2 inches per week.

The comfort zone around here, seems to be at least twice that.

[JohnV]

Perhaps Geoff can explain the numbers.  He cites a number of different sources for the data in his book so I don't know which one provided it to him.

[Lloyd_Cole]

Do we need to question the numbers when we can see how green these desert courses are? Either you think it is OK or you don't. What car do you drive? Same question. And no, it's not about freedom of choice. It is about your offspring.

[Forrest Richardson]

Lloyd,

Some "desert" courses may waste water, but my experience tells me this is rare.

Firstly, water costs $$, and there are few courses where $$ is wasted.

Secondly, courses in true "desert" regions are increasingly being irrigated with treated sewage (effluent). This not only benefits the golf course, it also benefits the community by disposing of this water into open soils where it is filtered and returned directly to the aquifer from which it originated.

Thirdly, a hundred acres of irrigated open space produces enough oxygen to support a town of about 7,000 people. Golf course open space is not only sustainable, but it typically will handle drainage of rooftops, parking lots, streets and other polluting hardscapes. This dual role of courses serves populations, while also providing jobs and recreation. On a per capita basis, a golf course affects the environment far less than most other commercial uses — especially agrilculture.

I'm not sure where you reside, nor your professional background. I take exception with what seems like a blanket statement on arid climate golf. Perhaps you can tell me more?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Forrest,
In Arizona a farmer averages 33,500 lbs. of lettuce per acre or about 3,115,000 lbs. per golf course(90acs.).

Broccolli        = 20,000 lbs per ac. x 90acs.
Carrots         = 25,000  
Cauliflower    = 30,000
Hydew melons= 24,500

That's a lot of food. One golf course worth of lettuce is the equivalent of 12,460,000 dinner salads.

The comparison of golf to agriculture is not a good one, in my opinion. Even though fertilizer/chemical/ water usage is higher
for agriculture the benefits are spread out amongst more people.

I'm in favor of golf and although I am concious of the environment I am not a nut. I just favor a more proactive approach, like the 35 Superintendents on Long Island that adopted more stringent application standards than what was being proposed by EPA, thereby heading off any confrontation in their locales.

[Marc Haring]

My course uses an average of 3M gallons of water per annum, which equates to 4 times the usage of the clubhouse. All irrigation is provided by winter collection and all the ponds, lakes, treated effluent from clubhouse, clubhouse roof and car park and drainage is routed to the storage reservoir.

1cm of water falling on our course is the equivalent of all our irrigation needs for the year and in fact our reservoir always gets topped right back up after a good days rain in November.

A decade ago we were mono-crop farmland that had little environmental benefit. Now we are teeming with wildlife of every conceivable kind.

We do not use any fungicides on our turf with little detrimental effect and last year sprayed no pesticides whatsoever.

Overall the benefit our course has on the local environment has been massive, but we still have along way to go before we get to the levels that other golf courses in the UK are at.

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