By CINDY ELLIOTT
Golfweek ContributorWith plenty of golf courses across America still looking lush and green, it’s often difficult for golfers to grasp what a growing water shortage might mean for them. But a glance at the Las Vegas Valley brings an arid future into focus.
Drought conditions there have restricted new courses to 50 acres of turf cover – less than half the acreage of a typical 18-hole layout. It’s a formula for extreme target golf with tiny tee boxes and greens, and slivers of fairway.
No surprise, such restrictive policies have stunted development in the valley and spurred course operators throughout the Southwest to deal with the water crisis on their terms – or else.
But the innovations they’re adopting – using recycled water, alternative plants and new technologies – are more than self-preservation.
It turns out, they’re also helping the environment and their communities-at-large.
The following highlights some successful practices in the Southwest:
• Southern Nevada: About 63 percent of the courses in this region participate in one of the nation’s most effective water-conservation projects, the Water Smart Landscape Program.
Created by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the program provides courses and other property owners with a rebate of $1.50 for every square foot of turf converted to xeriscape, a lush but water-efficient landscape alternative that requires virtually no maintenance once established.
Major conversions at facilities, including Spanish Trails Golf and Country Club, Red Rock Country Club and Wild Horse Golf Course, have contributed to the transformation of 629 existing acres. That’s akin to eliminating the need to water six courses, saving an estimated 1.5 billion gallons each year.
Gary Grinnell, a senior civil engineer at the Las Vegas Valley Water District, credits the use of citizen advisory groups, community meetings, focus groups, newsletters, billing inserts and other educational outreach efforts for helping residents and businesses embrace the region’s various water conservation programs.
In all, community cooperation, combined with efforts of local courses, reduced water consumption by 18 billion gallons between 2002 and 2006, even with the addition of more than 330,000 residents and roughly 40 million annual visitors.
Southern California: Courses in California’s Coachella Valley soon will benefit from the use of effluent, or recycled water, thanks to the Coachella Valley Water District’s $70 million Mid-Valley Pipeline Project, now under construction.
The project will help alleviate the area’s groundwater-overdraft condition, in which more water is being pumped out of the aquifer than is being returned. The pipeline will deliver water from the Coachella Canal to the Coachella Valley Water District’s Wastewater Reclamation Plant, where it will be blended with recycled water and delivered to 50 courses in Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells for irrigation.
The project is a hefty investment – paid for by the Coachella Valley Water District – but its dividends will be many. Communities in the valley that dump effluent back into lakes and rivers now view courses not only as more desirable disposal sites, but as a new revenue source.
Courses will have to buy the effluent, but it’s a good deal for them, too, because it’s far less expensive than drinkable water. Even better, the project will save clean water for community use and minimize the need to build costly and environmentally harmful dams and reservoirs.
“As restrictions on water use are developed and enforced, golf courses using recycled water for irrigation will not have to worry about running out of water. . . . (It’s) a drought-proof source,” says Olivia Daniels, recycled-water manager for the Coachella Valley Water District.
Some facilities are making the change to effluent on their own.
In 2000, SCGA Golf Course in Murrieta, Calif., spent $1.6 million to install an irrigation system that uses recycled water exclusively instead of drinkable groundwater. According to Pat Kimball, general manager and director of golf for the Southern California Golf Association’s property, the new system has realized cost savings of approximately 40 percent. Conserving higher-quality water makes the switch a no-brainer.
Says Kimball: “It’s the right thing to do.”
Arizona: Modern computerized irrigation systems, such as the AquaSpy “smart irrigation” control system used by the PGA Tour’s TPC Scottsdale, promote water conservation by helping courses use less water and using that water more efficiently.
Installed in 2006, the system measures soil moisture, salinity and temperature levels, enabling the club to adjust irrigation based on weather conditions and seasonal variations. Individually controlled sprinkler heads also are used for optimal efficiency – spaced 55 feet apart instead of the typical 65 feet – to prevent water loss from wind and evaporation.
In the first year of implementing these new environmental strategies at TPC Scottsdale, which uses effluent, superintendent Jeff Plotts was able to save more than 11 million gallons of water, reducing his annual water budget of $385,000 by $44,500 – or 11.6 percent.
“It is our environmental responsibility to continue to find ways to make effluent water more suitable for the high demands for turf quality while irrigating in a desert environment,” Plotts says.
– Cindy Elliott is a freelance writer from Seal Beach, Calif.
Posted: 12/31/2008
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