September 2007

How Green Is Your Tee?

Stormwater management on golf courses can benefit from an Audubon program.

Serene and almost unearthly green, golf courses hardly appear as anything but a place to relax. But because of the very fertilizers and pesticides used to keep them manicured for performance, managers need to take steps to prevent any risk of polluting neighboring waterways with excess nutrients through stormwater runoff.

When nitrogen and phosphorous, the most common excess nutrients, flow into surface water, they can cause algae to bloom. This algae then can use up oxygen other aquatic life need to survive during what is known as eutrophication. Side effects of this process can be slimy water, a foul smell, and fish kills.

“The few research results I’ve seen—my sense is more work is needed—are somewhat mixed; however they suggest to me that depending on the course, golf courses can be significant contributors of nutrients. One study showed receiving waterway concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus second only to cropland,” says Richard Gannon, nonpoint-source program supervisor in the planning section of the Raleigh-based North Carolina Division of Water Quality.

Currently, states are in the process of developing region-specific nutrient criteria recommended by the EPA under the Clean Water Act (see the article “All in the Numbers” in this issue). In addition, many golf courses across the United States also are taking steps to remain environmentally friendly by taking part in a program sponsored by Audubon International, a not-for-profit environmental education organization that works to promote land management and conserve natural resources.

“Audubon International launched the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program [ACSP] for Golf Courses in 1991, with a grant from the United States Golf Association,” says Kevin Fletcher, executive director of Audubon International based in Selkirk, NY. “The Audubon Signature Program grew as an outshoot from the ACSP in 1993, when developers and designers asked to work with us. The Signature Program employs the same education and environmental improvement philosophy but applies it during design, construction, and long-term management of a new golf course or any new development for that matter.”

Teaching people better management practices that help accomplish this remains at the heart of the program.

“Currently, golf courses, golf communities, residential communities, a marina, and even a church have used the Signature Program to help develop with nature in mind,” says Fletcher. “Well-designed, -constructed, and -managed human landscapes can play a critical role in stormwater management in urban and suburban settings. Both of these programs, for golf courses and other human-dominated landscapes, help meet that goal.”

The three different levels of certification in the Signature Program—gold, silver, and bronze—are divided primarily by stricter restrictions, cost, and site complexity. “The minimum requirements are the same for the Bronze, Silver, and Gold programs,” says Nancy Richardson, director of the Audubon International Signature Program. “Each project that contacts Audubon International has different needs, and those needs require a different amount of time from Audubon staff.”                                                   

Richardson explains some features that distinguish the three levels. “The Bronze Program is more of an education, review, and audit program and was created to accommodate one land use only, such as a school or a golf course, but not both,” she says. “The Signature Program office works primarily with the land or facility manager for educational purposes and coordinates the review of the externally prepared Natural Resource Management Plan [NRMP] in order to make final certification determination.”

Silver Program members can expect more Audubon International involvement with their project, according to Richardson. “More than one land use may be registered in the Silver Program,” she says. “Experts from Audubon International prepare the NRMP and contribute additional educational support, as well as onsite technical advice and assistance to the land or facility manager and landowners.”                                               

Finally, participants in the Gold Program receive the most comprehensive degree of project support from the organization. “A team of experts takes the environmental lead as participants in design, construction, and management of the project,” says Richardson. “They prepare an Environmental Master Plan, which includes an NRMP, for all aspects of architecture, building materials, and landscaping, as well as extensive environmental education interaction and onsite technical advice and assistance in sustainable development and best management practices.”

Initial program registration fees range from $9,500 up, depending on the program level and details of the site. There is a $500-per-year renewable membership fee after one year for the Signature Programs. Bronze Program participants receive three site visits and are re-audited every two years; Silver Program sites receive five to seven visits; and Gold Program Sites can expect 16 to 20 site visits. Silver and Gold sites are re-audited with site visits annually.

While there are no additional fees for ACSP members, Signature Program members can expect to cover travel expense costs and the cost of any environmental planning services that aren’t included in the registration fee.

In the United States, the registration fee for the ACSP program is $150. Internationally, the cost is $200. Costs that are difficult to measure, however, are the cost savings that certification may bring and the priceless protection of native species.

Stormwater Safety in the Southeast
Because The Palisades golf club and residential community in Charlotte, NC, is located very close to Lake Wylie, developers sought help from Audubon during the 2004 planning stages of construction to receive a permit for the site. The course has maintained its Gold Signature standard level with Audubon.

Photo: The Palisades

The Palisades is an Audubon Gold Program member.

“We have a handbook written by Audubon for our site. It’s really written together. The core of it is treatment of stormwater,” says David Coleman, superintendent of The Palisades. “How are you going to treat the water? There’s no one way. It’s not a situation where you can say, ‘This is the way: You must do this.’ We do not return any water directly to any creek or stream.”

The course has a system in place that treats the stormwater before it reaches any dry ponds, wet ponds, or vegetated waterways.

“It would be much more expensive for an existing property to add these changes after the fact,” says Coleman, adding that it was not terribly expensive for The Palisades to become certified because the requirements were built into the construction process—incorporating swales, for example.

Photo: The Palisades

Construction incorporated stormwater from the get-go.

We don’t use fertilizers or pesticides within 100 feet of any body of water,” he says. “As we were working with Audubon, they realized our need as a functioning private country club to have our needs maintained. As needs change, it’s an ever-changing program. The proof is in the water testing. We test the water coming out of the system.”

Matt Bossert, natural resource manager for the entire Palisades community and golf course, says water-quality tests are performed on the course at least twice annually. The most recent tests offered no significant deviation from previous results. Levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and chlorophyll are tested, as well as turbidity.

Coleman says water on the site is broken up and discharged across four locations. The wet and dry ponds allow surface water to trickle into streams, he explains, without destroying the banks. Engineers involved in the design created the plan for 5 inches of rain.

Photo: The Palisades

The course uses fertilizers no closer to water than 100 feet.

“That’s the threshold. Water slowly seeps through gravel berm 50 feet away from creek or pond,” says Coleman. “We make sure the gravel berm doesn’t get silted up. Silt will dam it up. The pipe can get clogged. Since you don’t hold water, you don’t breed mosquitoes.”

A significant number of best management practices (BMPs) have been put into place on the golf course, according to Bossert. “We have a goal of no net increase of water velocity,” he says. “It’s a systems approach.”

Roughly 30% of the neighboring subdivision of 2,500 homes, only 200 of which currently have been built, is located on the golf course.

“Our community is based upon a sheet flow water-quality plan,” says Jim Medall, president and owner of the residential community. “We have tried to use natural buffers to reduce velocities. Our goal was to simplify the water quality.”

Photo: The Palisades

Less turf means less water … and more cost savings.

The system in place has allowed the course to save money regarding the amount of water used in maintaining the golf course, explains Coleman. “There’s less turf, which means we use less water. The irrigation system is set. We are only watering the playable surface area. We only maintain 65 acres of maintainable Bermuda grass,” he says, referring to the par 72, full 18-hole property. “We just water the tee top. On this golf course, you see the playing surfaces surrounded by woods and native grasses.”

Plant choice also makes a difference. Bermuda grass, for example, like that which is used at the course, typically has less of a need for irrigation than a tall fescue, according to Bossert, who adds that well water also is used for irrigation.

A smaller playing surface, explains Coleman, also can reduce the costs of electricity, gasoline, and labor for maintenance.

“Stormwater quality is becoming more and more complicated as more and more mechanical systems are created. Most of the time our goal is to come up with non-mechanical natural buffers,” says Medall. “Our goal of reducing water velocity dramatically improves the efficiencies of the buffers by 75%.”

The vegetation in the area that needed to be replaced was replaced with natives, primarily grasses. Many fertilizer products, including those that contain arsenic, are not permitted for courses that are Audubon certified.

“We do a lot of soil sampling. We can supply them with that information; they want to see my records,” says Coleman, who explains the amounts used to justify specific end results. “We have high standards for our building where we store the chemicals and rinse and load our sprayers. We’re protecting groundwater by the guidelines that they set up.”            

Once club members see the changes that have been incorporated into the course as a result of the Audubon program, says Coleman, they have been receptive to the idea. Bossert notes that while there are some small compromises from a playability standpoint, people are satisfied.

One of the primary reasons people select housing in the community, says Medall, is its commitment to the environment. Area water-quality experts are satisfied with the steps the course is taking.

 “Because we agreed to use Audubon, we didn’t have any further reviews required,” says Medall, referring to the City of Charlotte. “It [the stormwater plan] was not required to be reviewed.”

At Ryder Golf Course near Fort Bragg, NC, a state-of-the art irrigation system was installed and different animal habitats were created to meet the requirements for ACSP members. Megan Magoon, community relations representative for the environmental branch of Fort Bragg, explains that the US Army base is home to five different endangered species of plants and animals.

“We had a couple of species of plants—the rough-leaved loosestrife, American chaffseed, Michaux’s sumac—and a butterfly, the Saint Francis satyr. The most popular [endangered species] is the red-cockaded woodpecker,” she says. “We have turtles. We have certain snakes and salamanders. We’re one of the few existing places left with the long-leafed pine. That’s the ecosystem here. They keep all the golf courses to maintain the natural habitat.

“It’s a big thing to make sure habitats are in good form, because with all the training, land gets limited, so we want to save what we have.”

The Audubon certification is one way to show the community the golf course is maintaining a natural habitat and still is able to use that environment for recreational purposes, explains Magoon.

Going Native in the Northern Midwest
Surrounded by hills and an oak savannah area, the Braemar Golf Course in Edina, MN, received its ACSP certification in 2004, though the course had been in line with many of the practices endorsed by the organization before that.

“We’d had Audubon-style practices for years and years,” says Todd Anderson, assistant manager of Braemar. “We did increase some of our no-mow areas. We did some wildflower and local natural planting. We increased the number of bird boxes, bluebird nests. We had money donated for a kiosk between our first and 10th tees that has information about our wildlife.”

This wildlife includes wild turkeys, foxes, ring-necked pheasants, bald eagles, hawks, coyotes, songbirds, and deer. “We’re spotting new species each year,” he says. “We’re seeing more wildlife.”   

Photo: Forest Dunes

Audubon helped this course maintain a nearby trout stream.

Bird counts are practiced at the site, which has about 200 playable acres. “We’ve had bird-watching groups out here doing some inventories,” says Anderson, noting the natural insect control process birds bring. “It does seem that our mosquito population is down somewhat, too.”    

When the property that became Forest Dunes Golf Club initially was being developed in 1997 in Roscommon, MI, there was resistance because of a blue ribbon trout stream in the area. Jim Bluck, the golf course superintendent, says that Audubon was brought in to put parameters in place so water levels wouldn’t be affected.

“They also go as far as resource management—meaning, for example, when we built our maintenance building, we have a lot of windows instead of lights,” says Bluck, adding that the lights they do use are energy-efficient fluorescent light.

An inventory of plants, animals, and insects on the property was taken prior to construction as part of the Gold Signature Program, which the course remains involved in.

“Doing soil surveys, groundwater levels—all of that was documented to have baseline information. A program was written up that none of that would change and that it would be enhanced,” says Bluck, referring to the design stage of the project. “Audubon was involved in routing total turf areas, total acreage of planting surfaces, wildlife corridors established throughout the property.”

One of the primary changes involved directing all internal drainage away from surface waters, he says. For the first five years post-construction, water-quality monitoring and testing were required every quarter. Now that more than five years have passed, the water is tested biannually.

“We have an independent company come in and do it,” says Bluck. “We’re sampling for nutrients, but we are also sampling for some pesticides.”

Bluck refers to what he calls the Audubon bible for maintaining the property, including fertilizer and pesticide selection.

Photo: Forest Dunes

Total playable acreage at Forest Dunes is just 70 acres.

The aquifer running beneath the property stretches from northwest to southeast. Tests are performed on water entering the property at a well in the northwest, and the five monitoring wells in the property’s southeast portion determine any impact the property has on the aquifer, explains Bluck, who has noticed the amount of runoff has decreased.

“We are on 100% glacial sand. Runoff really doesn’t happen here. The runoff we do get is off the turf surfaces,” he says. “They built up the sides of the fairways along the water surfaces to eliminate water running off the fairways into the water surfaces.”

The Audubon program limits the area of total playable acreage—70 acres at Forest Dunes, while many other courses offer 100 playable acres—thereby reducing the amount of natural area affected and the amount of irrigation used.

When the site’s vegetation went to seed, this seed was harvested during the pre-construction phase. This seed then was grown in greenhouses, says Bluck, and returned to the original site.

“In our native areas, there is no blue stem from South Dakota,” he says. “It’s all from the original property.”

Monitoring Matters in the West
Returning an area to a native state is a central tenet of the Audubon certification program, according to Dorian Parola, superintendent of the Village Country Club in Lompoc, CA. Monitoring progress through the land and the fish and game that surround the course is part of this process. In addition to reducing water usage, the course is required to track its pesticide usage from year to year.

“They want you to show improvements that you’ve done,” says Parola, citing as an example the bird boxes that have been set throughout the course and the bird counts that are performed. “We show them documentation of some of the projects we’ve completed.”

As at other Signature-certified courses, the Audubon certification specs were built into the Village Country Club during its construction, though the course has changed its irrigation system to maintain the site’s native oaks by preventing overwatering. Ongoing maintenance at the course also includes removing any invasive non-native plants. “A big one is Pampas grass,” says Parola. “We’ve removed 90% of that from the golf course.”

The organization presently is working to return the greens to bentgrass, a move Parola says will not only improve the current putting surface but also significantly reduce fungicide application on the course.

To meet the Audubon certification requirements, the club purchased some plants from a native nursery. “Currently, I have our own nursery from our native trees that we’re growing,” says Parola. Manzani is among the species native to the site. Greenwaste material is composted at the site. Also as part of the program, water-quality testing is required.                       

“We’re in a semi-arid area. It’s really dependent on rainfall. We’ve only received 3 inches, and our normal is 15 or more. We don’t really have much runoff,” says Parola. “We use super-slow-release fertilizers. Anytime our chemicals are going into the creek, it’s wasting our money.”

While changing the irrigation system to meet Audubon requirements raised some initial costs, the program saves money in the long run, explains Parola. “After the initial investment, it saves you water, fuel, and fertilizer.”

Parola says club members are proud of the certification and that it’s absolutely a selling point for the golf course.

 “I think there’s a misperception out there that golf courses are bad for the environment. They’re great,” says Anderson of the Braemar Golf Course. “We use a minuscule amount of pesticide compared to the average homeowner. The misperception is that golf courses add a lot.”         

In addition to the environmental incentives, there are practical reasons behind the program. “In general, we found that golf courses did not pose a significant threat to water quality: For mostly economic reasons, they tend to manage fertilizer and irrigation use so as not to exceed needs, which has the benefit of little or no runoff into the environment outside the course,” says Roger W. Briggs, a professional engineer and executive officer of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board in California. “Also, many of the golf courses in our region use recycled water and/or capture stormwater for irrigation.”

Briggs holds a positive outlook on the Audubon program. “We understand that with the Audubon Certification Program, any golf course would benefit from certification. The program has several major components including environmental planning, chemical use reduction and safety, water-quality management, and outreach and education,” he says, citing the example of the Village Country Club located in his region. “The water-quality management component at Village Country Club includes a monitoring component, which tests for fertilizers and pesticides up- and downstream of the facility with a commitment to zero discharge from the site. Audubon International helps with site assessment and environmental planning. Above all, the program brings an awareness of environmental concerns to the golf course managers that they may not have had before engaging in the process.”

The future of Audubon certification will continue expansion into areas other than golf courses.

“Both the ACSP and Signature programs are applicable to most landscape-based, human-dominated developments,” says Fletcher. ”We have a critical interest, as central to our vision and mission, in reaching out to the over 200,000 existing neighborhood and community associations, the bevy of new residential developments and subdivisions, and working with entire towns and municipalities through our Sustainable Communities Program to help drive communities becoming more sustainable through both environmentally responsible policy and practice.”

Expansion is planned far beyond US borders. “Audubon International is always looking forward for ways to assist landowners in protecting water and wildlife wherever that might be. Through its Signature Programs, Audubon International is interested in working with brownfield developments and with larger tracts of land that have regional impacts,” says Richardson. “We have also expanded our services internationally and are pursuing projects in Australia and South America.”

Future development aside, the Audubon programs are helping golf courses in the present maintain a healthy green, in every sense of the word.