The Palm Springs, Calif., golf resort is still dealing with damage from late-summer storms that sent a river of mud and debris down the mountainside and into the wash, affecting eight holes and burying cart paths. The club has requested that city council transfer $100,000 to the property to help cover restoration and cleanup costs.
The city-owned Tahquitz Creek Golf Resort in Palm Springs, Calif., is still dealing with damage from late-summer storms that sent a river of mud and debris down the mountainside and into the wash, the Palm Springs-based Desert Sun reported.
Eight of the resort’s 36 holes still have thick mud spread onto the greens and, in some cases, buried golf cart paths. Strewn branches, almost an entire palm tree and what appears to be a telephone pole are among storm remnants that have yet to be cleaned up, the Desert Sun reported.
Golf course staff have tried to move the thick sludge, but it’s too cumbersome, said Tom Russell, the golf course superintendent.
The Palm Springs City Council was asked on November 20 to approve a transfer of $100,000 into the golf course fund to help pay for the cleanup and restoration of the course. The outcome of the vote has not yet been reported.
With that financial boost, the golf course hopes to have it cleaned up enough by Thanksgiving—one of the busiest weekends for the municipal course, the Desert Sun reported.
“This is the first time I’ve seen this where it was mixed with a soil and caused this much damage,” said Russell of the wash run-off. The mud caused a drop in business from folks who don’t want to mess with the mud, said Russell. “Some people look at it and say they don’t want to throw it in there and lose their golf ball.”
City Manager David Ready said it’s expected that a golf course located inside a wash would experience some run-off effects when there are floods, but he hadn’t expected the cleanup to be as expensive, the Desert Sun reported.
“We certainly have had flooding there in the past,” said Ready, calling this one “certainly one of the worst.”
It was the monsoonal weather in late August through early September following fires in the San Jacinto Mountains that caused the mud to run down the mountainsides into the Coachella Valley, causing damage to the Indian Canyons, which just completed cleanup and reopened on Monday, among other properties, the Desert Sun reported.
Following fires, the vegetation and soil is loose and is easily carried with the rain. The flow appeared to be about 50 percent water and 50 percent soil, the Desert Sun reported.
“When it came down it was a charcoal wall of (sludge) three or five feet high,” Russell said. “It railroaded past the dam and berm.”
The city plans to hire MD Energy LLC out of Rancho Cucamonga to remove the soil and scrape it away to the Bermuda grass that lies underneath. Russell thinks the grass underneath is salvageable. The removed soil will then be used to re-establish landscape mounds on the golf course along the wash to serve as protection, the Desert Sun reported.
Tahquitz Creek has two 18-hole golf courses. The mud-flows affected two holes at the Resort course and six holes at the Legend course, the Desert Sun reported.
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