The elephant in the room—or perhaps more appropriately, the shadowy monster lurking in the pond—is the new Clean Water Rule for Waters of the United States, which is scheduled to take effect August 28 and could have far-reaching effects on the golf course industry.
As reported in the August 2015 issue’s Course & Grounds feature (“New Strategies on Tap,” pg. 42), management teams at club and resort properties around the country—and not just in areas like California that have been hit with historic drought crises—have demonstrated impressive leadership in developing innovative and resourceful solutions for making significant gains in water conservation, without sacrificing the quality of their golf courses and surrounding landscape. (In some cases, in fact, the improved aesthetics from creative replacement of turf with drought-tolerant native plantings are striking—see the before-and-after photos from North Shore CC.)
While these changes are yielding significant water-usage and cost savings—and, in many cases, ensuring that the club properties making them will be in compliance with new mandates and not subject to substantial penalties—the primary motivation behind them, as Betsy Gilliland writes in her article, is that golf course superintendents and other managers have decided that seeking out and implementing new strategies for improving water-management efficiency is simply the right thing to do.
After reading what’s in print in this issue, you should read the online version of the article. There, you’ll find additional content detailing how many superintendents and managers are stepping into the new spotlight that is now being shined on golf courses’ water usage, to proactively set the record straight on what club and resort properties are doing right—and not doing wrong—as responsible stewards of such an increasingly precious resource.
There is an elephant in the room, however—or more appropriately in this case, perhaps, a shadowy monster lurking in the pond. The online version of this month’s Course & Grounds feature also includes a report on the potential implications of WOTUS—the Clean Water Rule for Waters of the United States that was recently developed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The new rules, which are scheduled to take effect on August 28, could have far-reaching effects on the golf course industry, because as presently written they would significantly expand the federal government’s jurisdiction over clean-water enforcement—even to the point where golf course properties could be subject to federal scrutiny for their watering, fertilization and pesticide use.
“[WOTUS] really lands right in the lap of a golf course, because it has to do with water, land and inputs,” says Chava McKeel, the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America’s Director of Government Relations.
And while the ultimate timing and scope of WOTUS could still be changed by developments now taking shape in both the House and Senate, club management teams should not delay, McKeel feels, in starting to prepare for new rules that will eventually take effect in some form and have broader-reaching consequences for how their properties can be operated and maintained. This is particularly true, she adds, for the many clubs and courses now catching up on renovation and construction projects.
“A lot more bodies of water will be covered,” McKeel believes— including many that were once thought to be safely ensconced behind clubs’ walls and fences and therefore immune from regulatory scrutiny.
Whatever form that WOTUS might ultimately take, it will call for superintendents and club managers to step up to another level of stewardship and leadership. The good news is there’s already plenty of evidence that they’re more than up to the task.
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