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Editor’s note: Inside Your Environment periodically will present summaries of case studies that are being featured on The Environmental Institute for Golf Web site. For more information on this month’s case study, visit www.eifg.org.
Rhode Island Country Club in Barrington, R.I., is a Donald Ross design that first opened its doors in 1911. Its four finishing holes sit hard along Narragansett Bay, and the property as a whole is bisected by Mussachuck Creek, a salt marsh waterway that has long defined the course and given golfers a true taste of coastal New England.
Over the years, however, that same creek became a source of constant headaches for CGCS Peter Lund. A failed tidal gate along the creek was restricting regular tidal flooding and flushing of the creek, resulting in a loss of salt marsh habitat and restricted fish passage. Without the beneficial tidal flushing, the creek became a breeding ground for Phragmites australis, a non-native invasive reed that grows in dense colonies reaching up to 15 feet in height.
That led to more practical problems on the golf course for Lund. Fairway drainage became an issue in areas immediately surrounding the creek, leaving sections that were once playable in late April under water and off limits until June and pumping up the costs of fairway maintenance. On some holes, the growing Phragmites created both playability and safety problems by limiting the line of sight.
In the meantime, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and a Rhode Island-area non-profit, Save The Bay, were examining a project that would restore 165 acres of anadromous fish spawning habitat and over 10 acres of salt marsh habitat. When this project came to Lund’s attention, he quickly moved to tie solving Rhode Island CC’s problems with efforts to eliminate those ecological problems.
The club soon entered into shared funding agreements with a whole host of environmental agencies to work toward these goals. An environmental engineer was hired to manage the project and to work with national and state agencies on the project.
The renovation, which began in November, is extensive from a golf course perspective. For example, following a study of how water would flow through the property once a new tidal gate was installed, certain fairways will be regraded to move them out of flood-prone areas. New drainage will redirect water away from low-lying fairway areas and into a new wetland area that will be linked to Mussachuck Creek. And finally, those pesky Phragmites will be cut, mulched and treated with herbicides to make those areas more receptive to native salt marsh grasses.
In the end, both golf and environmental supporters win with this project — the golf course gets a much-needed renovation that will improve both play and safety, while the ecology of Narragansett Bay will be enhanced for future generations.
ValleyCrest Golf Course Maintenance’s regional superintendent Vince Gilmartin, who has led the effort to obtain sanctuary status on the company’s courses, has been recognized for his environmental stewardship by Audubon International. Two Pennsylvania courses under direction of ValleyCrest have achieved environmental recognition. Willowbrook Country Club in Apollo and Westwood Golf Club in West Mifflin achieved designation as Certified Audubon Cooperative Sancutaries by the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System. Earlier this year, Youghioheny Country Club received the same environmental recognition. ValleyCrest has enrolled more than 40 of its golf courses in the program. Through its Brownsfield Initiative, the EPA is awarding grants worth more than $2.3 million to 12 communities in 10 states. The grants are intended to teach environmental assessment and clean-up job skills to individuals in low-incomes areas near brownfields sites in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin. |
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