PETA and Golf

My Golfdom interview with PETA's Stephanie Boyles has been posted. I'm pleased to say that she's gotten many calls and I have not received one "you-animal-rights-fanatic-communist-anti-golf-activist" piece of hate mail. Yet.

Actually, even the supers out there who love killing Canada geese would have a hard time finding fault with Boyles' practical solutions to wildlife and golf. 

Comments

[Pete the Luddite]

"Golf courses do get a bad rap and most environmentalists agree that it's well- founded. A typical course uses astounding amounts of water — enough to supply a small town. They can generate more pollution from fertilizers and insecticides than a working farm. "

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I liked the article, Geoff, in general. BUT, here's a huge problem. Overstatements are dangerous media weapons, and these two are HUGE.

Let's address these one at a time, now.

1. "Golf courses do get a bad rap and most environmentalists agree that it's well- founded. A typical course uses astounding amounts of water — enough to supply a small town."
A typical Northeastern US golf course uses 18 to 30 million gallons (Mgal) per year. The typical 3-bedroom family home uses 330 gal/day, or 121,000 gal/yr. Her "small town" is 250 houses. That's a subdivision, not a town. This is sensationalistic hyperbole and simply not true. Head South, and your water use can double. Fine, now we're at 2 subdivisions in an urban area, or a "town" of 1,500 people. Hyperbole, folks, not fact.

2. "They can generate more pollution from fertilizers and insecticides than a working farm."

A working farm, call it 600 acres, which is small, will generate far more fertilizer impact than a golf course. Golf courses fertilize perhaps 150 to 180 acres of fairways, greens, tees, and ornamental areas. Nowadays it's more on the high side for new courses. Courses are under immense permitting and review/monitoring requirements to minimize nutrient loading to groundwater. Ask a Cape Codder aboutnew golf courses - they aren't being being built or even proposed, in part due to nutrient loading concerns.

Add to that the superintendent's eternal pressure to minimize impact, maximize appearance, and avoid excess leaching of nutrients to groundwater. Leached nutrients are "wasted" since they don't provide the benefit to the turf. Properly managed turf areas can result in nutrient loads to groundwater of well less than 5 mg/L, the drinking water standard. So, you could put a drinking water well in the area and not have nutrient poisoning. Insecticide use is product-specific, and they typically degrade rapidly by design to minimize contamination of water (ground or surface). Working farms provide much more substantial nutrient loading, as a result of less regulatory pressure and often less sophisticated application techniques or controls. Leaching rates are often much higher as the application areas are not completely covered by plants, with open spaces that allow for direct percolation into the ground and below the root zone that would take up the nutrients. Denser agricultural coverage, like golf turf, provide a denser network of roots for uptake and consumption of nutrients.


Golf courses are NOT the enemy. Properly managed, they provide nutrient loading consistent with competing land uses, not greater loads. Indeed, I have seen areas where excessive nutrient loading has occurred from unmanaged residential application of fertilizers in the great neighborhood competition to see who can have the best lawns.

Golf courses have long been a ripe target for regulators and media to go after because of their visibility. Other non-point source uses that contribute nutrient loads are often overlooked. Golf courses actively manage nutrient and insecticide loading so that they use the minimum possible. It's a budget thing...

Sorry for the long post, guys. I just hate to see people unfairly malign golf courses as the nutrient bad boys on the block, or the water hogs. (That being said, I think that golf courses in Palm Springs are ludicrous. I did a water resources modeling study of that whole valley a few years ago, and THAT was enlightening)

Keep up the good work, Geoff.

[Pete the Luddite]

Sorry for the double post, but wanted to add this.
You definitely aren't an "animal-rights-fanatic-communist-anti-golf-activist". That was probably the most I've ever been able to appreciate a PETA view/activity.

Hope you don't get any hate mail. It was a great article.

[Smolmania]

I just wish Pete's side of this post was out there in the media more often. I'm tired of non-golfers who criticize golf courses on environmental bases when, in fact, there are far greater detriments to the environment than the open spaces maintained with 18 small holes in them.