Lakes, wetlands or other water hazards test the skills of golfers and golf course builders alike. Unless bare soil is protected from erosion because runoff, rainfall, snowmelt or irrigation during construction, soils can wash off site and pollute other bodies of water on site and/or farther downstream. In addition to lessening water quality, this also could violate National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System regulations and run the risk of costly fines or having the project shut down.
Controlling erosion to prevent wind and water from dislodging soil particles is the first line of defense against off-site transport of sediment. It’s also the key to minimizing costs of sediment control, which is to minimize sediment from runoff before it’s discharged from the site.
Erosion concern
It was against this background Suffern, N.Y.-based Turco Golf Builders began construction of the 18-hole Patriot Hills Golf Course in Stony Point, N.Y., during the summer of 2001.
“There’s a lot of elevation change throughout the course,” says Joe Smyth, golf course superintendent at Patriot Hills. “Erosion was a major concern in building the course.”
The easily dispersed clay particles in the clay-loam soils added to this concern, as did the water features: a pond on one hole and four acres of wetlands around two other holes. In all, about 20 acres of slopes on fairways, roughs and areas around greens, tees and bunkers called for measures to limit soil losses from storm-water runoff.
Alternatives
Smyth considered and rejected several concepts:
· Because of the project’s slope lengths and gradients, using loose straw or hydromulch wouldn’t have been able to control erosion effectively.
· On a previous project, Smyth had used sod effectively; but in this case, the cost exceeded the erosion control and turf establishment budget.
· Erosion-control blankets were considered, but the staples used to secure them had to be removed later. Also, netting can interfere with mowing. Erosion-control blankets were installed on several small areas early in this project, but the expense of covering all the critical slopes ruled out this alternative.
So, Smyth went with a less costly approach: an advanced flexible growth medium, Flexterra, from Profile Products.
Solution
Material and installation costs of the product are about half those of sod, according to Dick Grant of Chesapeake Turf LLC. The porous blanket allows turf to grow up through the matrix of fiber and conforms closely to humps, dips and other surface irregularities for maximum soil protection.
Other advantages include the crimped and man-made interlocking wood fibers that create a mechanical bond for enhanced erosion control. These fibers retain as much as 15 times their weight in water, reducing storm-water runoff and transferring more moisture to the seedbed, which improves germination and turf establishment.
Grant says the advanced flexible growth medium also was advantageous because other flexible growth mediums require about 24 to 48 hours after application to cure and control erosion completely, whereas Flexterra was effective almost immediately.
Results
In 2001, Chesapeake Turf completed seeding and erosion control on 11 holes between the first of August and the end of November. The flexible growth medium was applied with seed and fertilizer at an average rate of 3,800 pounds per acre, covering about 1 to 1.5 acres a day. A hot, dry summer and average rainfall was followed by above-average rainfall for the rest of the seeding period, Smyth says. Several storms dropped about an inch of rain within two hours.
“The FGM product performed real well, and there was little runoff from the storms,” he says. “As expected, the seed germinated in about five to six days and produced a good, uniform stand.”
Grant recalls one particular situation in August.
“The rain was heavy enough to create washing in untreated areas, but there was no washing where we applied the FGM,” he says.
In addition to controlling erosion on the banks of a pond and around wetlands, the flexible growth medium also prevented seeds in the roughs from washing onto the fairways and bunkers, according to general contractor Dennis Turco.
“Wherever it was sprayed, everything held up well,” he says.
Smyth says Flexterra is a nice alternative for controlling erosion if one doesn’t have the budget for sod.