ASGCA Past-President Bob Lohmann worked with Reid Golf Course (Appleton, Wis.) and area officials to construct a giant wetland to manage a water-retention issue.
As reported in Golf Course Industry magazine, the resulting project created a giant filtration system that cleans up the stormwater before heading downstream.
Lohmann writes in GCI, “Surrounded by urban development, Reid GC for many years had already served a practical water management purpose in town: a concrete channel cut directly through a four-hole section of the course, gathering overflow from the course and also from the paved streets all around it, and ultimately delivering that water into the Lower Fox River, which flows into the Wisconsin River.
“Two problems: First, not enough water was actually making it downstream efficiently, resulting in all sorts of localized flooding on course but mainly off course. Second, the water that did reach the Wisconsin River did not meet new state standards for water quality.”
Over two years, Lohmann Design and local companies worked to address both issues, and also upgraded four holes on the course, at basically no cost to the course managers.
“We naturalized the channel passing through the course and hugely expanded Reid’s retention capacity by creating four acres of new ponds – or for you engineering types, nearly 50 acre-feet of new storage, enough to handle a 100-year storm,” Lohmann writes. “The key word here is ‘naturalized.’ By creating what is essentially a giant wetland, we also created a giant filtration system that cleans up that stormwater as it passes through the on-course system before heading downstream.”
The complete article – and more detail on this impressive project – can be found here.