The California property is fighting its state’s drought by digging a depression to hold 3.4 million gallons of recycled water from the local sanitation district that will be used for irrigation.
Napa Valley Country Club in Napa, Calif. is fighting the historic drought in its region by creating a pond that will be much more than just another golf course water hazard, the Napa Valley Register reported. The depression will hold 10.4 acre-feet of water, enough to fill five Olympic swimming pools and will be filled with recycled water from the Napa Sanitation District, the Register reported. The wastewater from the city of Napa will be treated until it meets irrigation quality standards that can then help keep the rural golf course green.
“Aesthetically, environmentally, everybody wins,” Napa Valley CC’s General Manager, Todd Meginness, told the Register about the arrangement, the planning for which C&RB reported on last year (http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2014/08/13/13m-project-brings-recycled-water-napa-calif/).
“We’ll be recharging the water table at the same time,” Meginess noted.
Napa Valley CC is located about 1.5 miles east of the city of Napa, the Register reported, and the Napa Sanitation District plant is located more than eight miles away from the club as the crow flies, along the Napa River near the Napa County Airport.
Other golf courses in the area, including Eagle Vines Golf Club in Canyon, Calif. and Chardonnay Golf Club in American Canyon, Calif., also use recycled water, but are much closer to the Sanitation District plant, the Register noted. Napa Valley CC will now get its water from the $14 million, 5.1-mile-long Milliken-Sarco-Tulocay (MST) pipeline that is being built to bridge the gap between the club’s property and an existing recycled water pipeline. The MST Pipeline, which is expected to be finished by the end of the year, will also bring irrigation water to rural homes and vineyards along the way, the Register reported.
Construction of the MST pipeline is nearing the end of the line. The
Meginness then expects to see Napa Valley CC’s new pond filled with recycled water next year, and after that the bulk of the golf course will no longer depend on well water and a creek for irrigation, the Register reported.
When it was built a century ago, Napa Valley CC got its water from an artesian well that flowed to the surface. But today, the Register reported, the water level in the well used to irrigate the front nine holes is 150 feet deep, reflecting the falling groundwater levels in the Milliken-Sarco-Tulocay area.
Once the recycled water arrives, the golf course will hardly need to use the well at all, Meginness said.
Water for the back nine holes comes from a creek and is stored in ponds, the Register noted. But the creek needs storms to make it flow. During the drought, storms are less frequent and a key water supply more iffy, with no backup.“It’s pretty scary every year,” Meginness said.
The golf course expects to use about 220 acre-feet of recycled water annually, the Register reported. It will have a pump station next to the pond that will provide pressure to the golf course sprinkler system.
MST customers pay an annual assessment, and Napa Valley Country Club is the largest customer of all, the Register reported. The golf course will pay $125,000 a year for 20 years, and will also pay for the recycled water it uses. The pond that it is carving out and the pump station will cost about $900,000. officials said.
“It’s an enormous amount of money,” Meginness said. “But without water, we don’t have a golf course.”
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