Tag: golf

Greening the Golf Course

  • Audubon International estimates the average American golf course uses 312,000 gallons of water a day. (Photo source: Easchiff at Wikimedia Commons)

This time of year, golfing might be
the furthest thing from your mind.
But during the off-season, golf course
managers get to strategize how to best
treat their million dollar turf. Some
golf courses have a bad rap with
environmentalists. But, as Tanya Ott reports, there’s a budding
green movement in the golf industry:

Transcript

This time of year, golfing might be
the furthest thing from your mind.
But during the off-season, golf course
managers get to strategize how to best
treat their million dollar turf. Some
golf courses have a bad rap with
environmentalists. But, as Tanya Ott reports, there’s a budding
green movement in the golf industry:

Golf courses take knocks for using too many chemicals and too much water. Audubon International estimates the average American golf course uses 312,000 gallons a day.

Gil Rogers is with the Southern Environmental Law Center. He says that’s a boatload of water.

“In Georgia, they’re defined as agriculture – which doesn’t make any sense – but that allows them to use a lot more water than they would otherwise be able to.”

That can be a problem, especially in places with water shortages. Places like Atlanta, where a federal battle over water rights might soon leave the city high and dry.

(sound of rain hitting metal roof)

Of course, on this day, water doesn’t seem like much of a problem. It’s been raining all night. I’ve come to the Stone Mountain Golf Course, just outside Atlanta, to talk to superintendent Anthony Williams. He won golf’s highest environmental stewardship award this year.

(sound of power screwdriver)

Technicians raise the reels on the mowers to help protect the wet turf. Williams says it’s been a tough fall. In October, a big storm – they call it the 500 year storm – dropped 16 inches of rain on Stone Mountain in one day. Williams says the only thing that saved his course were the acres of native plants.

“When that flood – literally – came into the property, those plants did exactly what nature created them to do. They fluffed out. Fanned out and really just acted like a sponge.”

When Williams took over a few years ago he ripped out the non-native ornamentals and replaced them with native perennials that don’t require any additional watering. Just rain.

(sound of rain on roof)

Stone Mountain isn’t just using less water. It’s also using fewer chemicals. Williams’ crew is creative. Take, for instance, one of their big problems: wild geese. They can do a lot of damage to million dollar turf.

“We refer to it as the in-and-out damage. The ‘in damage’ is when they’re actually eating the grass and physically tearing the green up. The ‘out damage’ is as they’re walking, well, (laugh) the eaten grass becomes, well, goose droppings and then the cleanup is very, very difficult.”

Conventional golf courses spray foul-tasting chemicals on the grass or light fireworks overhead to scare the geese. But at Stone Mountain, their secret weapon is a 13 year old hound dog named Cushman. When the geese see Cushman coming, they think he’s a predator. Williams says it works like a charm!

This focus on environmental stewardship is paying off financially. Anthony Williams says they’re using significantly less fertilizer and insecticides. He estimates they’ve saved nearly $50,000 on chemicals in the last two years.

How confident is he about the health of his golf course? I asked him if he was willing to put his course to the test. Apparently, some old-school players still lick their golf balls to clean them. Not a good idea when there’re pesticides on the grounds. Would Williams do it now?

“There’s a lot of things in nature that you probably wouldn’t want to eat or put in your mouth. So the golf ball’s going to encounter a lot of those along the way. I would definitely line up with the ‘do not lick your balls.’ I’m gonna be on that side of the fence.”

More golf courses are starting to look at their environmental impact for the first time. They’re planting different grasses.

And nearly 1,000 US golf courses use recycled or reclaimed water. Another reason not to lick your balls.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tanya Ott.

Related Links

Pint-Size Cars Sip Energy

  • Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (N.E.V.'s) can go up to 25 mph. The City of Chicago would like to see more people using them for short-distance errands. (Photo by Mike Rhee)

Hybrid cars are all the rage nowadays.

But Mike Rhee reports another car could take the concept of green-friendly vehicles a step farther:

Transcript

Hybrid cars are all the rage nowadays.

But Mike Rhee reports another car could take the concept of green-friendly vehicles a step farther:

These new types of cars are called neighborhood electric vehicles, or N-E-V’s for short.

Now, to me, they look like souped-up golf carts.

But don’t say that to Matt Stewart.

“It gives them a bad name.”

Stewart is the senior automotive equipment analyst, kind of like the car expert, for the City of Chicago.

It owns four of these small electric vehicles.

And Stewart doesn’t like comparing them to golf carts because he says N-E-V’s are much more sophisticated.

“They can go faster than golf carts, I think golf carts are allowed to go up to just under 20 mph, these go between 20-25 is the top speed. They have safety glass windshields, they have mirrors, they have turn signals, brake lights, headlights, and then they have automotive certified safety belts.”

OK, so N-E-V’s are not golf carts–They’re road ready.

And fully electric.

The vehicles are charged with just a regular wall plug and can go up to 40 miles on a single charge.

And this year, Chicago’s approved these vehicles to drive around nearly everywhere in the city.

“Hi, Garrick.”

“How you doin’?”

Garrick Mueller is a truck driver for the city of Chicago.


We’re standing in this huge warehouse that’s filled with fire engines, garbage trucks, and of course, some N-E-V’s.

Mueller says he uses this little vehicle all the time to move around the warehouse.

We buckle in.

“We’re all set, you ready?”

“Yeah.”


“Alright.”

“This is wild.”

“Isn’t it? It’s pretty neat.”

“OK, so we’re about to go on a regular street.”

“Yeah, Elston Avenue, we’re going to make a right. People look at you, they’re like, what is that? See right there– the cops looking at us? They’re like, ‘What is that.’ It’s like when you see a new car on the street you’re like, ‘Wow, look at that.'”

“Now, the ordinance they passed would allow everyday people like you and me have one of these at home. What do you think about being able to drive this around your neighborhood?”

“You know, I like it. I would definitely drive one of these. I mean, the doors come off in the summer, if you had kids and stuff, you could go to the ice cream parlor, have them seat-belted in and go right to the ice cream, you know, it’s nice.”

“That’s actually the goal.”

That’s Eileen Joyce.

She’s assistant commissioner of Chicago’s vehicle fleet.

Right now, Joyce says the city’s testing out the N-E-V’s for its lighter travel needs.

Say a worker needs to drop off a box of pamphlets at a concert.Or a few employees need to drive downtown for a meeting.

Granted, those kinds of trips are the minority compared to most of the city’s work with large vehicles like garbage trucks and snow plows.

But Joyce says the city wants to show residents how useful these vehicles can be, and, if they catch on, she says it could make a big impact on reducing pollution here.

She imagines N-E-V’s parked in driveways and garages everywhere.

“Plug it in overnight, go and run errands, go to the grocery store, the library, Blockbuster, return something, and come back and plug it in without using any fuel or emitting any emissions into the air.”

Joyce says 39 states permit these smaller vehicles to be used in some form or other.

Some businesses have already started using N-E-V’s for things like food and pizza delivery.

So, you may not have seen one yet, but it probably won’t be long before you do.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mike Rhee.

Related Links

Golf Course Erodes Support (Part 1)

The Great Lakes boast some of the finest beaches in the country…
and
more and more developers are snapping up lake shore property to build
everything from condominiums to golf courses. But coastline development
presents some challenges and potential risks to the lakes. In the first
of a two part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson
reports on one small community that’s struggling with change:

Golf Course Drives Legislation (Part 2)

A controversy over lake shore development on the coast of Lake Michigan
is creating a heated debate over how to handle erosion. In the second of
a two part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson
reports that how this case is resolved may have implications throughout
the Great Lakes:

Golfing With Wolves

Animals often lose their natural habitat when rural areas are
developed. But sometimes those new developments can provide them with
even better access to food and shelter…and that can cause populations
to explode. In Canada’s Banff National Forest, the problem is elk. One
of their favorite hang-outs is the golf course, where they eat
everything in sight, and leave behind mounds of dung… so the town put
together an elk advisory board to study the problem, and now they may
have found an innovative solution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Wendy Nelson reports:

Golf Craze Sweeps the Region

Business is booming for Michigan’s golf industry. According to the
National Federation of Golf, Michigan now exceeds both California and
Florida for most public golf courses per capita. Even universities are
cashing in on the golf craze by converting parts of their campuses into
golf courses. But now one university, in a wealthy Detroit suburb, is
encountering opposition from environmentalists as they try build a
course on their land. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Marisa Helms
reports:

Landfill Golf Takes Off

For years, developers have been have been re-using old dumps by buildingover them. Some of these projects have been successful. The HarborsideInternational Golf Center in Chicago, built over a landfill, is one of themost popular in the city. But other cities have been forced to CLOSElandfill golf courses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie GrantCooper reports on the first landfill golf courses in Ohio, and the lessonsits developers are learning from older projects: