"Water Week" on Golf Channel's Morning Drive

[Howard Riefs]

Good to see Matt Ginella shine a light on sustainability and the importance of water to golf courses in the 'Water Week'-related segments on "Morning Drive" this week. 


There have been pieces on Pinehurst No. 2, Pasatiempo and Goat Hill as well as a sit-down with Steve Smyers and others.


http://www.golfchannel.com/search/?f4=Water+Week

[astavrides]

Thanks for the link. Important topic. I'll check out the vids now.

[Tom_Doak]

I mentioned to Matt last month that the Australian clubs are 10 years ahead of us in regard to water issues, but I guess he didn't have time to include them.  Royal Melbourne and Royal Adelaide collect surface street storm water, filter it on property, and use it to supplement their water supply.  And most of the clubs use Santa Ana couch grass (bermudagrass) because it's the most drought tolerant.

[James Bennett]

Tom

RA is licensed to capture 200 ML, which is captured mainly in winter and discharged into the aquifer, then pumped out and 200 ML put on course in the summer.

The salinity has halved by doing this, to about 500 parts salt.  Not perfect, but eminently better than over 1000 parts and facing potential water restrictions.

Nearby on the Adelaide sandbelt, Glenelg and The Grange are also doing this.  I don't know how successful they are.

A few years ago, Pennant Hills in Sydney was tapping into the nearby trunk sewer, doing some on-site processing and using that to irrigate during the drought.  Not sure how successful this was (I just don't know) or whether they are still doing it.  The Sydney drought is over for now.

James B

[RJ_Daley]

James, your salt residue problem would pale compared to we "frozen tundra" locales, where I'm guessing that captured street and surface rain water that comes after winter snow melt still would gather enormous salt residues embedded in road surfaces, from the winter constant applications of salt and salty chems to deal with icy and snowy roads.  Just a guess.  But, it seems ingenious from he little I've heard of how you Aussies manage the aquifer recharge efforts made to deal with this irrigation water demand. 

[Blake Conant]

I mentioned to Matt last month that the Australian clubs are 10 years ahead of us in regard to water issues, but I guess he didn't have time to include them.  Royal Melbourne and Royal Adelaide collect surface street storm water, filter it on property, and use it to supplement their water supply.  And most of the clubs use Santa Ana couch grass (bermudagrass) because it's the most drought tolerant.

Tom, are Australian clubs filtering off-site stormwater through constructed wetlands or mechanical filtration systems?  Any idea what the upfront cost would be to retrofit something like that on an urban course here in the States?

[Steve Lang]

   James if you're going to talk "parts", please clarify for folks its parts per million (ppm), which i assume correct?


In the middle east they like to keep things below 1500 ppm of total dissolved solids (TDS) for irrigation water quality.  But that's not an absolute number...


Groundwater can easily have 300-800 ppm TDS, surface river waters 80-200 ppm TDS.


RJ_D, folks have been recharging aquifers for many decades in many locales, for instance the City of Dayton, OH has been recharging the Great Miami River Buried Valley Aquifer since the 1920's via recharge lagoons and ponds.


This topic is really "what's your water balance?"

[Mike_Young]

I mentioned to Matt last month that the Australian clubs are 10 years ahead of us in regard to water issues, but I guess he didn't have time to include them.  Royal Melbourne and Royal Adelaide collect surface street storm water, filter it on property, and use it to supplement their water supply.  And most of the clubs use Santa Ana couch grass (bermudagrass) because it's the most drought tolerant.

Tom, are Australian clubs filtering off-site stormwater through constructed wetlands or mechanical filtration systems?  Any idea what the upfront cost would be to retrofit something like that on an urban course here in the States?

Blake,
I've seen several residential development courses here use water from retention ponds that collected all of the street run-off.  All of the large pump station manufacturers have sediment filters that can be installed...I'm not sure if that is the proper name but some of the big ones can remove red clay sediment from water quickly....in the south there have been cases where new greens would collect a layer of sediment form pumps w/o filters whether it was street run-off or golf course run-off...

[Blake Conant]

I mentioned to Matt last month that the Australian clubs are 10 years ahead of us in regard to water issues, but I guess he didn't have time to include them.  Royal Melbourne and Royal Adelaide collect surface street storm water, filter it on property, and use it to supplement their water supply.  And most of the clubs use Santa Ana couch grass (bermudagrass) because it's the most drought tolerant.

Tom, are Australian clubs filtering off-site stormwater through constructed wetlands or mechanical filtration systems?  Any idea what the upfront cost would be to retrofit something like that on an urban course here in the States?

Blake,
I've seen several residential development courses here use water from retention ponds that collected all of the street run-off.  All of the large pump station manufacturers have sediment filters that can be installed...I'm not sure if that is the proper name but some of the big ones can remove red clay sediment from water quickly....in the south there have been cases where new greens would collect a layer of sediment form pumps w/o filters whether it was street run-off or golf course run-off...

It makes sense that new golf courses, especially ones built around housing, would figure out how to capture stormwater runoff.  The cost would be less than retrofitting an existing urban or suburban course since you could incorporate it into the plan and design.  I'm curious about the cost of retrofitting an existing urban/suburban course.  If, for instance, Athens CC wanted to capture off-site stormwater runoff, how would they go about it and what would it cost?

[Mike_Young]

Blake,
I would think that indirectly and probably unknowingly the lakes at a course like ACC are filling from road run-off that is entering the stream that feeds the lakes...not sure but seems logical...

[James Bennett]

In Adelaide, we use wetlands to cleanse the water from surburban streets before placing the water in the aquifer.  Water capture occurs in winter (when it rains) and water is recovered in summer (we can have three months without rain in summer).

My '500 parts' was a reference to salinity of the water extracted from the aquifer.  Pre wetlands, the water was more saline than desirable, over 1,000 parts.  Now the water from the same source has half the salinity.

There are courses in Melbourne which use suburban runoff into smallish dams that can hold perhaps a month's water.  Rainfall of some sort is more frequent in summer in Melbourne, making this a viable option.  There is normally some rain event every month in summer.  Melbourne has a temperate maritime climate, whereas Adelaide is more mediterranean, especially with regard to rainfall.

[Tom_Doak]

Blake:


Royal Melbourne's system includes a created wetland near the maintenance building to filter the water before it goes to storage.  I don't know the details of how much water can be filtered and how quickly, but I can put you in touch with the greenskeeper if you wish.


James' answers on Royal Adelaide are better than mine.  I'd just mentioned something when I was there about Royal Melbourne's system and was surprised to hear them say they had done the same thing already.

[David_Tepper]

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2015/11/15/water-week-and-goat-hill-morning-drives-coverage.html

[Greg Cameron]

didn't notice anything regarding paspalum turf.In fact,can"t recall any talk in recent years on discussion board regarding its use as a playing surface.Anyone know of its use on recent projects?