A Club Director article, “How to Challenge Legislation in Your State,” summarized six critical elements to produce an effective political campaign against a proposed golf tax in California: (1) a strong, proactive lobby presence in the state capital; (2) a professional public relations firm; (3) a politically sophisticated, dedicated, interactive website; (4) a single coordinating entity; (5) a cooperative team with available resources to reach out to potential constituents and (6) joining coalitions. The result: The sales and service tax on golf was soundly defeated.
Each of these elements may be needed to organize similar campaigns on other state and local legal/regulatory issues, including those regarding the use of water by the golf industry. The current drought in California continues to pressure the golf industry and state and local regulators to address long-term issues relating to water and there is little relief in sight.
The California Drought and the Regulatory Context
Droughts occur periodically and affect virtually every part of the nation at one time or other. The present shortage of water in California certainly presents a great challenge to all parties affected here, but it also presents an opportunity—to use this crisis to turn policies and regulations away from the older model of extraction and depletion of precious resources, and toward a more forward-thinking model of conservation and sustainable use.
The current California drought is major news, covered in media across the country. The state is now in its third consecutive dry year, and on Jan. 17, 2014, the governor proclaimed officially a drought and state of emergency.
In 2010, prior to the current drought, statewide legislation mandated that all water usage in California must be reduced 20 percent by the year 2020, with a 10 percent reduction by the year 2015. Enforcement is delegated to the more than 600 local water districts in the state, large and small, which stand to lose various forms of state funding if they fail to achieve the reduction targets.
As a result of this legislative mandate, golf course superintendents across the state already have been adapting management practices to deal with foreseeable future shortages of water. The adaptations include: investing in improved technology to apply water more efficiently; changing turf varieties; using wetting agents; and taking areas of turf out of irrigation. More significantly, many course superintendents and operators also have been investigating how they can connect to a source of non-potable water for irrigation, primarily recycled water. Of course, adapting management practices and connecting to alternative supplies of water will cost substantial money. As an offset to these costs, using less water in the longer term should lead to the benefits of saving money and ensuring supply.
The Economic Profile of Golf
There are 921 golf courses in California, second only to Florida. According to an on-going study called “The California Golf Economy,” commissioned by Golf 20/20 for the California Alliance for Golf and prepared by SRI International, in 2011 California golf courses and other related facilities generated $6.3 billion in direct economic activity, and supported approximately $13.1 billion of total economic activity, $4.1 billion of wage income, and more than 128,000 jobs, substantial by any measure. According to the study, golf courses produced $36,266 in revenue per irrigated acre, about six times the revenue produced by grapes or by almonds and pistachios, and ranking golf higher than many categories of businesses in the state.
Examining an important case in point, 124 of these California golf courses are in the Coachella Valley, which includes the Palm Springs area. A majority of the Coachella Valley golf courses are private clubs, often within gated communities. Harsh cuts of water to Coachella Valley golf courses would mean a number of these courses going brown or shutting down. Also, there would be a significant risk of job loss for golf course superintendents, course maintenance personnel, golf professionals, clubhouse workers, hotel workers, real estate agents and restaurant employees. There likely would be substantial economic hardship throughout the area. In other areas of the state, especially San Diego and Monterey, losing golf course facilities and their related economic value similarly would produce adverse economic risks, perhaps less dramatically.
The golf industry, consisting of both public access courses and private clubs, constitutes a major business sector in California, and should be entitled to a reasonable amount of water to operate, as are such other important business sectors as agriculture, manufacturing, technology and entertainment. In times of water shortage, reductions in water for businesses should be a shared burden.
Developing Relationships with Regulators
One of the main goals of the Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD) has been to reduce golf course use of potable water for irrigation. A major problem to be avoided in the Coachella Valley is over-drafting of the local aquifer, which is the primary source of local drinking water for more than 300,000 people. For several years, the CVWD has used its Mid-Valley Pipeline to connect an increasing number of golf courses to a blend of reclaimed and Colorado River water for irrigation. The chief caveat, according to Heather Engel, director of communications and conservation at the CVWD, is that the conversion process “takes infrastructure and money and time.” This caveat applies similarly throughout the state.
Since December 2013, the Coachella Valley Water Conservation Task Force, comprised of representatives of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GSCAA) and other golf executives, has been meeting monthly with the CVWD. An example of how cooperation can assist is a current effort in which the task force is helping the CVWD with an application to receive up to $3 million in grant money from the state to help valley golf courses convert out-of-play areas into non-irrigated desert landscapes.
Similar cooperative efforts between local water districts and local golf industry representatives to reduce potable water usage for irrigation have been underway in several other areas throughout California. Beginning in 2009 with a task force in Los Angeles, and thereafter in San Diego, Sacramento and the Central Valley, the original purpose of such cooperative efforts was to enable golf course superintendents, as experts and stewards of water, to determine for themselves how to achieve reductions in water usage, rather than to have reductions forced upon them by categorical ordinances dictating the days of the week and times of day for irrigation. By and large, superintendents have been very effective in reaching reduced usage targets set by regulators, and reductions forced by the method of severe ordinance provisions largely have been abandoned.
Dealing with Problems in Public Perception
Not surprising, in times of drought like the present, media reporting sometimes turns to water usage for golf courses and implies by tone that the usage is excessive. This is not to suggest that media reporting to date has been unfair, but experience teaches us that the golf industry would be well advised to stress the positives on its side of the story. For example, buried in a May 19, 2014 San Jose Mercury article is an interesting passage listing certain facts as controverting golf’s “image problem.” The passage reads, “Golf courses account for less than 1% of the fresh water use in California, while homes, businesses and industry use roughly 20%, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Farmers use almost 80%.” How many readers would focus on these facts and other passages in the article favorable to water use for golf?
Critical to success in the campaign against the golf tax was favorable media reporting, which included a number of newspaper editorials and letters to the editor across the state that supported golf and told golf’s story. We used a professional public relations firm to energize constituents, to inform and persuade government officials, and to combat erroneous public perceptions of who plays golf and who would be adversely affected by a tax targeting golf. In short, tremendous effort was put into effective messaging related to the issue at hand.
A number of favorable media pieces appeared, which were submitted as a single package to the state legislature. The effect on legislators was to turn the tide in golf’s favor.
The Current Opportunity
In 2009, the California Legislature passed an $11 billion water bond to be placed on the following General Election ballot. As a result of the economic downturn, the legislature later withdrew the measure from the ballot on several occasions; however, it is scheduled again to be considered by the voters in November 2014. The measure has needed significant change from the 2009 version and two primary bills are pending currently to replace it. Of special importance to the golf industry, these bills include between $500 million and $1 billion for recycled water projects.
Recycled water is a drought-proof water supply and a preferred solution for the golf industry so long as: (1) the golf facilities can be connected to this source of supply and (2) the quality is adequate for use. Using recycled water does not diminish the state’s supply of potable water—and could go a long way toward solving golf’s “image problem.”
The California State Club Association (CSCA) recently addressed the recycling opportunity in an article written for its private golf club members that described what could be done practically and proactively to pursue this solution by working with appropriate local agencies to create a permitted project to deliver recycled water. In addition, CSCA’s lobbyist has allied CSCA and the golf industry with a coalition of water districts and other water leaders who currently are requesting that $1 billion be restored to the pending water bond legislation in a dedicated chapter for competitive grants for recycled water.
As noted above, the process of converting to recycled water or any other non-potable blend “takes infrastructure and money and time.” The state’s $1 billion allocation for this purpose would be very helpful.
Also pending in the legislature currently are measures to require unregulated groundwater basins to develop groundwater management plans, which would be submitted to the Department of Water Resources for approval. The state has never broadly regulated groundwater. Some local groundwater basins currently are regulated; some are not. In most basins there is no database of information on who is pumping or how much is being pumped.
Although there is a great deal of groundwater in California, in some areas it is being depleted at a rate faster than it is being replenished. The Coachella Valley aquifer, for example, is at risk for depletion depending on the amount of pumping that occurs. Some private golf clubs and other golf facilities are in areas that are currently unregulated, and depend on pumping from their wells for irrigation needs. When pumping groundwater leads to subsidence, the practice clearly is unsustainable. The golf industry would be well advised not to be on the wrong side of history on this subject.
Joining Together to Face a Crisis
As clubs in California learned from the golf tax experience, no single golf organization or group acting alone could accomplish the organizing, messaging and advocacy required to effectively oppose a proposal such as the golf tax. The same could be said of a campaign to present persuasively the position of the golf industry with respect to a long-term shortage of available water.
Private golf clubs would die if cut off entirely from water for irrigation. If a true crisis were to present itself, a joint effort would be required—use of constituent rosters, e-mail lists, phone calls, financial support and volunteer hours—in short, teamwork. Coalition partners would need to serve as conduits to get messages to their constituents and to potential supporters. Reaching the individual golfers, more than 3 million in California, to garner their support would be crucial.
One of the biggest challenges for the golf industry, including private clubs, continues to be a lack of assured funding to support needed advocacy to face a true crisis. We cannot predict whether periodic water shortages in California and elsewhere will ripen into full-blown crises for the golf industry and for private golf clubs, but we can work to be prepared and insure against the possibilities.
Robert Bouchier is the current and past president of the California State Club Association. He also is a former executive director of the California Alliance for Golf.
At the recent back-to-back men’s and women’s U.S. Open Championships at Pinehurst No. 2, the famed North Carolina golf course received a fair amount of attention and praise for its restoration project. More than 40 acres of bermudagrass rough was removed during a project overseen by the design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, creating wider fairways and a sandscape complete with wiregrass and native flowers that harkened back to Donald Ross’ original design and the way the course played in the 1930s.
The USGA and many of the top players in both the men’s and women’s games lauded the fast-and firm results of the restoration project. Bob Farren, CGCS, Pinehurst’s director of grounds and golf course maintenance, insists that the restoration was not just for the U.S. Opens.
“The common denominator in everything we did was water,” Farren says. “Virtually all of the changes we made in the last 50 years necessitated (using more) water, so we decided to turn that back.”
On No. 2, that meant a return to the old centerline fairway irrigation and the removal of more than half of the irrigation heads, 450 in total, which has reduced No. 2’s irrigated area from 85 acres to 45 acres. Of the irrigation heads remaining, more than half are directed at greens and tees.
“The key point of reducing our water use was the elimination of overseeding,” Farren says. “The course is using 60 percent less water than it was in 2009 before work began.”
Farren says it took some convincing to eliminate the aesthetic-driven annual ryegrass overseeding, and they utilize turf colorants during the winter to provide some color, but the firmer, drier course has improved playing conditions and the cost savings are significant—a “win-win.”
Overseeding reduction can be a fine balance of an improved product and an appearance that could negatively affect business. Nowhere is that balance more precarious than in the Cochella Valley area of California, where golf is a primary economic driver and extreme drought is choking the water supply for golf operators in Palm Springs and Palm Desert.
Dean Miller, director of agronomy at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif., and president of the Hi-Lo Desert GCSA, serves on the Coachella Valley Water Conservation Task Force. Miller and the other members of the task force meet monthly with officials from the Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD).
A mandated 10 percent reduction in water use for golf is required in the Coachella Valley by 2020, following a 5 percent reduction in water use for golf there in 2010. The task force is working with the CVWD on a few projects to meet the 10 percent reduction goal. One is to provide non-potable water, which is treated wastewater, to more golf courses in the Coachella Valley for irrigation instead of groundwater. Another project the task force is working on is a budgeting structure for water use on golf courses in the valley that is based on consumption per acre instead of per hole.
“It’s not just switching water sources,” Miller says. “It’s a combination of other ways of saving water. Irrigation upgrades, switching turf to low-usage plants, and reducing overseeding areas during wintertime.”
The task force is also helping the CVWD with a grant proposal to help incentivize golf courses to convert out-of-play areas into non-irrigated desert landscapes.
With the main goal to reduce water out of the ground, the task force is working with the CVWD on plans to construct the infrastructure to extend the Mid-Valley Pipeline that brings untreated water from the Colorado River and Coachella Canal, to be blended with recycled water for golf course irrigation. Within the next two years, eight courses may be taken off groundwater and hooked up to the pipeline.
Sustainability and conservation practices do not have to be drastic changes. Improvements to irrigation systems and pumps, water well protection practices, reduced irrigation and maintenance of non-play areas, hand watering, rain and backwash water collection and contingency plans for droughts are all relatively small or routine things that can add up to significant water use reductions.
Investing the time to document that work for environmental programs like the Groundwater Guardian Green Site Program, Audubon International, eParUSA, or Golf Environment Organization can help demonstrate, communicate and promote best management practices and environmental stewardship.
“Most of us have been beating the drum for 10-15 years about converting out-of-play areas to native,” says Brett Hetland, CGCS at Brooks Golf Course in Okoboji, Iowa. “It’s to the point where there’s not much more turf we can eliminate. It’s the same thing with using wetting agents, auditing and upgrading irrigation systems, using moisture meters and monitoring evapotranspiration rates to maximize irrigation efficiency and minimize water usage. We know that, but I don’t think many others outside of our industry know that. We need to do a better job educating others about our progress and those environmental programs can help us market those efforts.”
By documenting work for an environmental program, it also validates the efforts and backs up those claims with data. That is an important move for golf, as it seeks to claim a seat at the table with policymakers looking to reduce the use of all inputs. It sets the industry apart as one that is proactive and one that wants to be a part of the solution, not the problem.
“Our work is based on science, not just hunches,” Hetland says.
In the end, superintendents taking the initiative to apply sustainability and conservation practices to reduce water usage isn’t just about those professionals wanting to do the right thing for both their golf courses and the environment. Rowland says it’s also about giving the customer what they want.
“Golfers do not want to play a wet course,” he says. “More water is more money, and superintendents do not want to waste either.”
Bill Newton is a freelance writer and former employee of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) based in Harrisonburg, Va.