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In the first Lean & Green column, I highlighted several environmental management systems available for use at your golf course facility.
One of those, the Golf Course Environmental Management (GEM) program has two aspects that distinguish it from the others. The GEM program utilizes an internationally proven five-step continual improvement process that quantifies and tracks stewardship improvements while identifying environmental and regulatory issues, or challenges posed by the golf course property and its operation.
These unique GEM program aspects ensure managers consider the most sensitive management practices while focusing on the truly significant during their daily duties. The five steps of the GEM process are analysis, documentation, implementation, evaluation and revision.
This column will focus on the first step – analysis.
Analysis
While struggling to attain my Bachelor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona last century, our program director, Dr. Mike McCarthy, visited one of our design studios to size up the undergraduate talent.
After a few introductory words of wisdom, he asked one question, “What is design?” Going around the room one-by-one, McCarthy’s dismay visibly increased due to our obvious lack of intelligence as each one of our answers completely missed the mark. Finally, one of my classmates blurted “Analysis!” Dr. McCarthy threw up his hands declaring, “at least someone has a clue” and walked out of the room leaving us both dumfounded and embarrassed. The lesson – analysis is design – has never been forgotten.
The same precept holds true for the design of a golf course environmental management plan. Analysis is planning.
Without intimately knowing your site and possibly more importantly, your local, state and federal environmental rules and regulations, one cannot possibly begin to become a true steward of the environment.
The conscientious golf course industry manager should never scrimp on this step of the process. If you do not have the time to compile an adequately detailed and comprehensive analysis, get help. Hire a consultant. Seek out volunteers. Call your regulators. Anything that could possibly help you to flesh out the physical, social and environmental vagaries of your facility will make your GEM Plan more successful and pertinent to your situation.
The GEM program analysis step should include a detailed examination of the site. Now, most golf course managers are extremely familiar with their facility. Looking at it with an environmental manager’s perspective is similar to the difference between what you see if you are riding around checking your crew’s performance and playing a round on Saturday morning with several of your members.
I try hard to get my superintendents out on the course with clubs in hand. It is amazing what you might see as a player of the game versus a manager of the facility. I usually recommend that each key staff member should play every hole at least once per month, maybe even once a week if time allows. You should always know how your facility works from your customer’s perspective.
Another key element of the analysis step is data collection. How many of you have historical aerial photos, construction documents, well permits, watershed, floodplain and wetland maps, invasive specie, or threatened and endangered specie habitat documentation? Information is your best friend. If you do not have these items handy, begin collecting them. If you do, consider getting them scanned and set up a digital library to ensure this valuable data will survive well into the future.
In my mind, one of the greatest recent technological innovations has been the digital camera. If you do not have one with you at all times ready to document flooding, before and after improvement projects, wildlife action shots and anything else of interest, you need to go get one – or several. Your staff can be your eyes on site during their workday as well.
Environmental Compatibility Index (ECI)
The GEM process includes five 20-question ECI categories that when completed quantifies the relative environmental stewardship currently employed by a golf course facility. The categories include Planning & Compliance, Operations & Maintenance, Water Resource Management, Conservation and Pesticides & Pollution Prevention. As mentioned above, the questions can sometimes be complex. Many times, a golf course manager cannot answer “yes” to all parts of the questions. Instead of penalizing their scores, we tally a “partial” answer creating two separate ECI scores, Actual and Potential. The Actual ECI is a total of the “yes” answers. This score indicates what practices are currently in place. The Potential ECI is determined by adding the “yes” answer total to the “partial” answer total. This score indicates where a course’s stewardship could be with a little more effort or time.
Environmental Challenges
Another unique characteristic of the GEM process is to ensure that golf course managers focus on the real issues at hand. Accomplish this by identifying environmental challenges that are “concerns or issues of local, state or national environmental significance or interest that may be impacted by course management practices”. Simply stated, environmental challenges are “things that are bigger than the golf course”. Some commonly identified challenges include wetlands, landfills, endangered species, water quality, water use, invasive species, floodplains, groundwater/aquifer and historical or cultural resources. The process of identifying environmental challenges is a significance test. Once identified, the golf course industry manager can confidently design their management practices so they do not impact an identified environmental challenge.
The next steps in the GEM process are documentation and implementation. We will cover those topics in the next article.
Bushman is the director of Ecodesigns International, a golf course management consulting firm. Contact him at ecodesigns@satx.rr.com.
