October 1st and Time To Panic

What a farce.  The past month monkeying with the river has been a complete disaster.  I was concerned with government delays but instead it has been everything else that has dragged out the process.  Contractors, pumper trucks, and deliveries all seemed to conspire against us but really it was just a series of poorly timed events that includes the continuation of summer that have delayed the projects completion.

Everyday I go and see more areas succumbing to heat stress brought on by the lack of water and it is finally worrying me. As the season progresses to mid-fall and the days get shorter and colder the opportunity turf will have to green up and store carbs before the ground freezes are all but disappearing.  I am concerned with the wear on areas from traffic that are no longer growing.  There is no way they had sufficient time to prepare for a hard winter and I don't see how those areas will recover next year to the same condition they were in early on.

When we spray fungicide it has a systemic component that has to taken up by a living grass plant in order to work at its best.  That will not happen on any area that has already gone brown and dormant.  I guess if you had to put a positive spin on it you could say that disease also needs a live plant to wreak its havoc so why worry?  You worry because if we have a hard winter (cold, no cover) the turf will get hammered from low temperature kill because it did not have time in the fall to prepare for winter.  You worry because if we get big snow over unfrozen ground turf will get hammered during spring melt when disease is active and because the fungicide that was applied in the fall was not taken up. You worry because if we get any sort of thaw or rain event that forms ice the turf will not have the reserves to cope and it will get hammered that way.

Granted most the areas are fairways, rough, and some tees but so much can happen over winter that it really pisses me off to know we are already behind the 8 ball for next spring and winter hasn't even started!  Hopefully, this is one of those things I've overestimated.

Outta Water: Update #6

Needles, bark, dead mice, and the odd dead rat is what greeted us as we mucked through the goop at the bottom of the wet well.  For someone who is claustrophobic and can't swim I feel like I met my phobias head on over the last couple days.  We were never able to completely stop the flow but slowed it enough that our small trash pump could keep the water from getting too high.

Exterior Wet Well Plug

Plug Installed

Looking Down the Interior Wet Well

As suspected, there was over 2 feet of goo in the bottom.  We brought in a vacuum truck and few hours later we had pretty much cleaned out the well.

Vacuum Truck

Goo

It is not cheap but mucking it out by hand would easily of taken a full day.  After getting the barrels clean we were able to see the conduit from inside the interior wet well and observed it was indeed plugged with more slop.  High pressure water created a slurry that was vacuumed up and we were able to unclog the conduit,

Looking Through Conduit From Inside Wet Well

A little more time working the fire hose (water supplied by using portable pump sucking from the river) and we were able to completely clean out the conduit.  So now we are all cleaned up and should be ready to pump water, however:

Intake

there is no water at the intake.  The river is so low the pumps have nothing to pump.  I still have to figure that one out.

If This Keeps Up I Should Be Able To Pick The Winning LottoMax...

O.K. maybe I am not that prophetic but another article this week from the USGA definitely indicates what I've been whining about in slightly more concise terms.  Go here to read an one page article that not only reiterates some of my concerns but also indicates that the conditions KGC is experiencing are not very unique when it comes to making decision about maintenance practice in difficult financial times.

Outta' Water: Update #5 - amended

(Oops! A little bit of funky math and poor writing in the original post) Quick comment on progress, such as it is.  The city was able to hook us up to the fire hydrant below 12 tee.  Water will cost $1.18/1000L and we are going to need close to 4 000 000 litres (close to a million gallons).  River wise we did a dry run to test the plug and it worked.  Now we need to get a vacuum truck back in and clean out the interior wet well.  There is easily 2 feet of  sand and silt that is covering the bottom screens and bottom bowls on the pumps as well as the conduit that connects the two wet wells.  I felt around and the screens are clogged with debris.  We'll need to, obviously, clean screens and run the pumps to see if we have problems since pump #2 would not draw any water at one point during excavation of the infiltration gallery.  I guess worst case the shaft is broken somewhere along the column or best case the screen was just to plugged.  I am hoping for the latter.  At present, we are at the mercy of the vacuum truck availability which is suppose to be tomorrow (Thursday).  As always I'll keep you posted. 

Outta Water: Update #4

I've posted on this subject once already but somehow it has disappear so I'll try it again

It's been 10 days and still no water.  We had the excavator at river and install a different type of conduit to aid in the flow of water to the exterior wet well.

Exterior Wet Well
With HDPE Conduit

Exterior Wet Well
With  Culvert Conduit

During the process we ran one of the pumps to keep the silt and sand from running into the river since we are out of the work window with respect to clouding up the river.  As the water flowed into the interior wet well it brought material in with it.  Because there is so much sand and silt already in the wet well from delayed maintenance last year and from this years run off the screens at the bottom of the pumps became clogged and could no longer draw water.  The only solution is to vacuum out both wet wells.  But as the name implies: they are wet.  There is no way to stop water from entering the exterior wet well.  We'll have to do it by guessing.  It is small and the water is only around 4 feet high.  The interior wet well is lower and has close to 5 to 6 feet of water.  To clean it out we need to stop the flow and the only way to do that is to plug the pipe connecting the two wells.  I sourced out some options last year but did not follow through because of money.  This year we're so far behind the 8-ball saving money is almost secondary to making sure we have water.  To make a long story short we ordered a plug and it took 6 days to get from Winnipeg to Kimberley but the wrong size was shipped.  Our supplier re-ordered and was trying to have the shipping process expedited.  Since originally posting the river has dropped quite a bit and I've been able to get a better look at the connection between the exterior and interior wet well.  The pipe connecting the two has an interior diameter of about 22" and it is close to 4/5's plugged with only a very little gap for water to move.  As I mentioned in the September 5th post, this is has to be the "unknown" reason why the pump house was unable to operate even after we cleaned the intake.

We've contacted the City and made arrangements to buy water from the fire hydrant near the reservoir to get us through.  Hopefully, by Tuesday we'll be adding water to the reservoir.

Successful Clean Up Thanks to Member Volunteers

Yesterday over 20 people showed up with rakes, trucks, and a good attitude and made very short work of the downed trees on 6, 7, 10 and 16.  All my crew is left with is clean up of stumps and logs.

Downed Tree 6 Fwy

From 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. people raked and loaded branches that were then hauled to a staging area in preparation for a truck and chipper from the city to process the debris which is needed as bio mass for the city water treatment plant.

A conservative guesstimate on man hours spent to do this (assuming only 20 people) would be 60 man hours.  The volunteer help allowed us to continue with cleaning up fairways and roughs with the larger equipment as well as allowed us to keep up with regular fall work (i.e. aerating fairways).  This type of input from members is a real boost and definitely shows there is a strong interest in keeping this place running!

Storm Damage

Sunday afternoon a small storm blew through town and left a mess in it's wake.

Aside from the above pictures damage include a uprooted tree deep in the rough on left of hole #2, a top snapped off near 7 tee, an uprooted tree on the right side of 11 fairway, a snapped top on left rough on hole 16, another tree down left of 10, and copious branches, cones, etc. down through out the whole course.  An event like this is never very good news but this time out with all the other tasks and issues we are trying to cope with make this a real pain.  It will take a while to clean up.  Work Bee anyone?

See, I am not full of sh*t....

My mornings are usually spent eating a danish, sipping a cup of dark roast while perusing turf related articles.  Such is the case for most golf course superintendents....(nudge, nudge, wink, wink).   Go here and read a one page article I came across this morning and  you'll see (except for the first point) that my usual babblings may have some merit.  FYI: the 10 mm of rain on Wednesday helped lots but other than that no real good news water wise but we'll keep banging our heads against the wall and I'll keep you informed as things change.

Back Where We Started.....

No water again.   Obviously the material plugging the intake is more encompassing than I can see.  The excavator will have to be mobilized again and remove more material after which we can, hopefully, fire up the river pumps and start drawing water.  During the initial excavation the volume and depth of water made a more extensive excavation very difficult so the choice was made to wait for the river to drop before completing the maintenance of the intake.  Traditionally the volume of water passing by the intake has been similar to what it is now and we were still able to pump.

September 5, 2012

September 6, 2011

September 9, 2010

This time, even with the level of water in the river is relatively good, a single pump can shut down after only 15 minutes operation.  Again, something more is going on than I can see.  The plan is to address this by weeks end and hopefully resolve the issue and replace the boulders and be ready for next years run off.  I'll be limiting irrigation again to stretch out the available water in the reservoir.  I'll keep you updated.

As forewarned, we began aerating fairways today.  This process is far earlier than usual but the drive to control expenses moved the aeration up.  By next Wednesday a portion of staff will be finished for the year and without bodies the chances of completing the fairway aeration by starting at the more traditional time of late September would be very slim.  Not aerating to save money would be a poor choice since the benefits of aeration, although not immediately obvious, are still dramatic and help in creating a better playing surface and healthier turf.

Based on hours from last year, the wage cost of a fairway aeration was around $13.50/hr for 131.5 hrs for an amount of $1775 and close to $250 in fuel for a total just over $2000 (because I am tracking fuel usage more closely this year I should be able to calculate a more accurate number for the actual cost per hour).  The important thing to remember is no extra staff is brought in, no over time is needed, and there is no other extra expenses (i.e. material goods such as sand, etc.) except for fuel.  For the next few weeks staff is still needed to mow and maintain the course so a wage savings by not aerating would not be there for September.  The only difference this time out we are doing more of the fall work "in golf season", if you will.  Any savings will be realized in October by running a smaller staff then since some of the regular fall work will have been completed.

Yellow and Red; The Colors of Fall

You may think I am referencing leaf color but in this circumstance I am referring to the painted marks on the fairways.  If you've golfed since Friday you will have noticed dinner plate sized paint marks on the fairways.  We do this for 2 reasons.  One is to mark the heads so staff members can trim around them since after a seasons growth the irrigation heads start to get covered by turf (especially after a year like this one which turned out to be a good year to grow grass!).  The second reason relates more the seasonal reference.  Starting next week we begin preparing for the end of the season.  The first task this year will be aerating the fairways before the final fertilization in mid to early September.  Cool season turf has two growth stages throughout the year and we are in the second.  Cooler days are more suited for root development and soil temperatures anywhere between 50 and 65 degrees F (or 10 to 18 degrees C) aid in root growth versus the hot days associated with summer.  Other factors influencing root growth are soil moisture and oxygen.  After a season of traffic from play and maintenance the soil tends to "tighten up" and limit oxygen and water movement.  When we aerate we are increasing oxygen within the root zone and ensuring that water reaches the roots where both are needed to encourage root growth (mass and depth).  A healthy root system will better be able to make use of soil nutrients from fertilization and natural organic matter breakdown.  Ultimately, it is the nutrient uptake which, in combination with photosynthesis, helps create and store carbohydrates (CHO) that the turf needs to recover next spring.  The more tools and time we give the turf to create CHO's the better the chances of success in the spring... maybe... (Oops!  I forgot to explain the red and yellow marks as they relate to aeration.  It is to make it easier for the guy operating the aerator to see the heads)