Don't Be Fooled by the Green

I can't tell you how many times I've heard a caddy or golf shop person say that Northern California golf course greens break towards the ocean.  That's a good way to lose your money if you choose to believe that non-sense.  

It's also non-sense to think that despite Cinnabar being more green than last year, we are wasting water.  We are actually using less water year to date since 2010.  I grant you that we had rain this year, but that stopped in April.  So let's look at May.  The evapotranspiration rate (loss of water from soil and through plant transpiration) for May 2017 was equal to 2013 and higher than last year by more than a 1/2" and yet we saved 4.6 acre ft more than 2016.  Looking at June 2017 to date, we are trending towards a 29% savings compared to 2013 which is equal to 2016 and weather has been nearly identical.

I know the Governor has said that the drought is over, but we still live in a desert.  The investments we've made and things we've learned are now just a way of life which doesn't equate to a lesser product.   

It should be noted that this has been written on the verge of a 6 day heat wave.  I have no concerns about water usage during this time as it won't change our practices much.  My only concerns are that the pipes remain charged and there isn't a blackout.  

Just Another Day

I was once in a restaurant and listened to two older gentlemen go on about how firefighters are the most overpaid of all city service workers.  "All you ever see them do is clean their trucks and buy ingredients for chili at the grocery store", they said.  I didn't agree with these gentlemen then and after helping put out a recent fire on course, I've got even more respect for what firefighters do on a daily basis.  

A call came in Wednesday afternoon from the Pro Shop about a fire that started on the 6th hole of the canyon. As I approached, smoke was looming over the trees.  Upon arriving the fire was rather small, but the wind was blowing strong through the canyon.  Fortunately, another staff member and myself were able to get hoses hooked in and the fire was quickly extinguished.  The little bit of smoke was brutal to be in and I can't imagine how so many men and women are doing it on a daily basis throughout California right now.  

This was started by hitting a ball out of a native area and the club sparked on a rock. Whether you're playing for money or not, I don't see the reason why you can't give your playing partners a little bump.  Put them next to a rattlesnake hole if it doesn't seem fair.   

2016 Water Supply Update: The New Norm

Did you hear the drought is over?  Unfortunately, that's what millions of Californian's heard when the State Water Resources Control Board announced that they were lifting the state wide band of mandatory 25% water reductions.  What they didn't hear was that they were turning over any water restrictions to the individual water districts and retailers.

The individual water districts and retailers were instructed to perform a stress test applying the previous three years of drought conditions and usage to the upcoming three years.  Where water supply is after 3 years of simulated drought conditions determines what restrictions are necessary.

Several water districts and retailers have lifted the ban due to water supply conditions meeting the stress test.  Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD), Cinnabar Hill's purveyor, has lowered the reduction from 30% down to 20%.  

We are allowed to use more water this year, but we aren't going to settle to just meet the 20%.  The drought and the last two years of conservation demand has changed our habits and mindset which is exactly what a conservation program is suppose to do.  We are as green as can be right now for June and it isn't because we are using more water.  We have actually saved 31.4% to date.   We've converted nozzles, added acid injection, applied tons upon tons of calcium, converted to single head control, changed the frequency in which we water and removed over 150,000 square feet of turf.  All of these permanent changes are part of our new norm and hearing golfers comments recently as they come off the course, our new norm is pretty darn good.

See how great we look on this recent drone flyover. 

My Tuesday Mistress

Since February 2014, I have had a standing date every other Tuesday evening.  Her name is the Santa Clara Valley Water District.  My GM Ron Zraick and I have been attending the water district board meetings since the drought really took hold.  We also attend the district's water conservation and recycled water ad hoc committee meetings monthly and I attend their landscape committee meetings every first Tuesday of the month.

The second meeting of the month is a real treat as all the big players from the district's water supply and conservation team are there.  The district called for a 30% cut from 2013 usage and they/ we the county, achieved 27%!  (Cinnabar Hills achieved a 31.5% savings)  I recall a board meeting where the board discussed the financial shortfall being greater than what was projected and staff response was that they really only expected 20-25% savings because historically they hadn't gotten close to the target.  Between district messaging and community involvement, the call to action succeeded.  

Yes, it took a drought to start attending board meetings but we are there now and it's something I typically look forward too.   When I consider the  magnitude of responsibility the district has I get a headache, but the Board and District Staff stand tall and meet those challenges daily.

Not The Start We Were Looking For

I found this graphic this morning while I was looking at the long term forecast of rain that just doesn't exist.  I don't know where the .01" in San Jose came from.  Maybe mother nature spit a little when she was looking down at us while chuckling.  Lacking the rainfall to lift the 20% reduction in water usage, the only thing I can predict with some certainty is another trying year for a lot of golf courses.  

2014 Water in Review

As 2014 has officially come to a close, I thought I'd share how we did for water savings.  Along with the water savings, I also wanted to show the weather differences in 2013 and 2014.

Total ET	2013	2014	% Change
March	3.13	4.06	29.71
April	4.96	3.27	-34.07
May	5.82	6.24	7.22
June	6.19	6.77	9.37
July	6.90	6.86	-0.58
August	5.87	6.02	2.56
September	4.28	4.42	3.27
October	3.15	3.33	5.71
November	2.02	1.92	-4.95
December	1.72	1.06	-38.37
Cumulative	44.04	43.95	-0.02

While the cumulative change in weather shows just slightly less evapotranspiration (ET) in 2014, the year certainly had its challenges.   The hardest months of any year, August - October, were actually significantly more demanding this year compared to 2013 as seen in the table above and in more detail below.  

Temperture	August		September		October
	2013	2014	2013	2014	2013	2014
Days >80	31	31	13	22	7	15
Days >90	4	8	3	5	0	6
Ave. High	84.5	87.6	80.3	84.4	74.2	80.3
Ave. ET	0.19	0.19	0.14	0.15	0.1	0.11

I am very glad to say that since the Governor's call for a 20% reduction on February 28th of 2014, we have saved a cumulative total of 24.7% water.  It was an extremely difficult challenge and there were certainly hard lessons learned, but lessons that will serve us well going forward.  

Total ET	2013	2014	% Change in ET	% Water Saved
March	3.13	4.06	29.71	-34.8
April	4.96	3.27	-34.07	-40.0
May	5.82	6.24	7.22	-21.1
June	6.19	6.77	9.37	-20.0
July	6.90	6.86	-0.58	-20.0
August	5.87	6.02	2.56	-21.3
September	4.28	4.42	3.27	-22.4
October	3.15	3.33	5.71	-21.2
November	2.02	1.92	-4.95	-28.6
December	1.72	1.06	-38.37	-100
Cumulative	44.04	43.95	-0.02	-24.7

The early rains have helped immensely with the recovery of lost turf, but by no means are we out of a drought situation.  We will continue with our Commitment to Community with our wise use of water as it is our most precious commodity.  

It's Been a While

April 25th of 2014 was the last time we saw rain this year... until today!  While I wouldn't qualify it a rain event per se, it is nonetheless moisture falling from the sky and causing the pavement to smoke in relief.  We probably won't get anything measurable from this, but we may be able to turn the sprinklers off for a day.

Since April 25th, we have been doing a lot of items to best manage this drought.  The highlights are continually punching/ aerating, lots of lime and more to come, continual irrigation audits, and changes to the irrigation programming.

We have solid tined fairways 3 times this summer while roughs and tees have been done twice now.  All three surfaces are getting core aerated as we speak and will be followed up by another application of lime.  The holes allow for better water penetration and the lime (calcium) is helping with sodium which has risen to 12% of the base saturation on fairways.  We were at 9% sodium in May and less than 5% is desirable.

Our irrigation man, Rolando, has been rocking with nozzle adjustments and pressure adjustments which has alleviated 75% of the nozzle issues we've had on the course.  Along with his help, we have made changes to the irrigation programming that have helped maximize efficiency.  Some of those changes were changing the flow set-point from 1800 gpm to 1300 gpm, only allowing 2 sprinklers to run per irrigation program at one time, and changing the priorities on the programs.

With the later, Tom Jackson of Sierra Pacific/ Rainbird has always stressed this and I never put much into it.  The theory is that by changing the sprinklers start time priority, the sprinkler will run at different times every night and the odds of the sprinkler running while windy every night are reduced. I still doesn't make sense to me that it has that big of an impact, but we are seeing the results and I can make sense of that.  

It really has been an exciting year learning how to best manage the drought and we have learned a lot that will have forever lasting impacts to how we manage water going into any irrigation season; drought or no drought.

www.save20gallons.org
www.valleywater.org

  

Everyone Doing Their Part

The other day as I was walking through the kitchen at Cinnabar Hills Golf Club, I had noticed a new bucket next to the dish washing area and a huge smile came across my face after I read the message.  The bucket had a message on it for the staff to empty drinking water into it that hadn't been drunk.  This is the optimism I mentioned in a previous post about what I thought a drought period can provide.  Everyone doing their part and hopefully becoming a way of life and not just something we do for today.  That water (almost 2g/ day) is now used on the flowers near the front door.

Please see our "Commitment To Community" page on the website to see what we are doing at Cinnabar Hills Golf Club during the drought and for more water saving tips, visit the "Save 20 Gallons" page brought to us by the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

Drones, Drought, and Cloud Seeding

In just 9 days, we will have ended the year with just 2.83 inches of rain.  Two of those whopping 2.83 inches came in January through April.  All of the 2.83 inches came over a total of 20 days.  For those of you who manage golf courses as well, let that sink in for a bit.  2.83 inches.  I remember my time served back in Michigan and fretting when we went a week without rain.  It is now three days before Christmas and I am still watering wall to wall every few days.

For now, the state of California has not declared a drought emergency, but with 75% of fresh water to the Western States being provided by snow melt and snow pack at 17% of normal, it seems eminent.  To push the issue, local lawmakers are calling on President Obama and Governor Jerry Brown to declare a drought emergency which would allow the transfer of water from wetter regions to California.

All the talk of drought at the club led me to a conversation with our Director of Golf, Adam Schiro, about cloud seeding.  It is something I had never heard of until now and has led me to the conclusion that rain dancing still has a chance.

There are two types of cloud seeding; cold cloud seeding and warm cloud seeding.  Cold cloud seeding is more prevalent and it involves dispersing silver iodide throughout the clouds. It has been very successful dating back to the first successful cloud seeding in 1915.  It was actually too successful as Charles Hatfield's chemical brew led to a 17 day downpour over San Diego leaving behind 28 inches of rain and left thousands of people homeless due to mudslides.


Cloud seeding evolved into other uses such as being used as a tool/ weapon for our military in what became known as Operation Pop Eye.  The Chinese also used 1,104 cloud seeding missiles in 2008 to remove the threat of rain ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing.  There theory, which by the way kept the ceremony dry, was to head off any rain clouds heading toward Beijing by making them precipitate prior.

Currently, 11 Western states participate in cloud seeding or weather modification.  It's latest technological leap will involve the possible use of drones to disperse the silver iodide into the clouds.  That testing is to be conducted in the fall of 2014.

The topic of cloud seeding to me as you have read is fascinating, but what does this all mean for Cinnabar Hills Golf Club?  It means that when 1/1/14 rolls around, we will still have ended the year of 2013 with 2.83 inches of rain and while cutbacks haven't been decided, we will need to be prepared.  Preparing for a drought year means prioritizing what needs water and where we can lose the water.  Our order is greens, tees, landing zones, clubhouse and driving range.  It will involve the heavy use of wetting agents to maximize our watering efficiency and a whole lot of hose work to just maintain.  Constant evaluation of our system will also be vital.

Until then, I will still be dancing and hoping for just one drop.  Maybe Thomas Bastis of California Golf Club could put a little silver iodide in his quad copter to assist with our troubles.  You never know?