In communities where water is scarce, the perception of lush emerald fairways and perfectly verdant greens... maintained at great cost for an elite few... often strikes residents as a frivolous allocation of this most vital resource.
Whether the cause of a water shortage is prolonged drought or rapid population growth... or whether there even is a water shortage in a particular area... golf courses are seen by many as the consummate water hogs. And golfers, by association, are looked upon as self-indulgent, inconsiderate, porcine primadonnas. Not a flattering image, to say the least.
However as Attaya Anthony points out in a recent article in the Sun Sentinel, many golf courses are actually helping to replenish drinking water. It's a fascinating piece that highlights the role of turf grass as a natural filtration system ...and the thing is, this is just one of numerous environmental benefits a golf course can provide when managed with sustainability in mind. As more golfers are educated to these facts, the hope is that they'll support those with an eco-friendly focus, and the sport's water hog reputation will ...pardon the pun ...no longer hold water.
i can on so many fronts, but i won't.............let's just say if we hadn't hacked away roughly HALF of the great "river of grass" formerly known as THE EVERGLADEs TO OVER DEVELOPMENT, then you could have used FLORIDA as a water preservation success story (between the city of hollywood pumping 40,ooo,ooo gallons of waste-water into the atlantic DAILY ( yup our ft liquordale beaches are often closed due to "fecal" matter in the surf ) and the FANJULs growing sugar cane since the 1960s accumulating fifty plus years of fertilizer and other polutants in the system SL FLA IS AN AQUATIC ECO-HAZARD )
ReplyDeletethe TURF holds moisture like a sponge, it does NOT filter it, per say, except to YES absorb certain nutrients such as various fertilizers BUT so would an aerated lake do the same or a shallow running stream
plants do not DRINK water but the liquid is needed to ciculate the necessary nutrients - kind of like BLOOD to a HUMAN a fluid to bring oxygen and nutrition and carry out waste )
okeechobee means BIG WATER and here are three years worth of readings;
ReplyDeleteOkeechobee Lake Regulation Elevation Last Year 2YRS Ago
(ft-NGVD) (ft-NGVD) (ft-NGVD)
*Okeechobee Lake Elevation 15.42 12.07 10.20 (Official Elv)
Bottom of High Lake Mngmt= 16.24 Top of Water Short Mngmt= 11.53
Currently in Operational Management Band
...........and as for the "source", the Sun-Sentinel was, until very recently, the LARGEST circulation newspaper to have NEVER won a pulitzer prize
ReplyDeletethis year it finally did, by reporting on police officers who drive recklessly and at excessive speed during their off hours, in NON-EMERGENCY situations, with one officer, late for roll call, killing an entire family in a smash exceeding one hundred miles and hour on a thirty-five mlie-per-hour speed limit road
anyway i don't know who ATTAYA ANTHONY is but my guess would be some connection to local LAND DEVELOPERs who want to crank-up the real estate market using the "positives" of a golf course ( and adding a premium price to the residential lot )
it used to be a name like NORMAN or NICKLAUS could boost prices to premiums by ten to fifteen percent but todays buyer is more ECO-CONSCIOUS and may not even know who PHIL MICKELSON is
frankDftLIQUORdaleSOfla33316
Whether it's golf courses or golf apparel and equipment, sustainability is most likely going to become increasingly important for future generations. There will certainly come a time where course developers and golf manufacturers will NEED to pay attention to environmental issues and labor practices.
ReplyDeleteQED: GOLF COURSES are a lot like CARS, BOTH will always be a net negative impact on the ENVIRONMENT, but otherwise the detriments will be explained away by bought-off and paid-for scientific advocates, land developers and residential real-estate promoters and of course avid golf marketeers
ReplyDeleteCARS need gasoline to burn (even ELECTRIC cars rely on coal-burning electric generation) and GOLF COURSE need water to irrigate AND both negatively impact the environment
and that's that
frankDftLIQUORdaleSOfla33316