[Jonathan Hart]

Apologies to our southwestern American friends, but golf courses pale in comparison to the water diversion going on in Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona.  The mighty Hoover Dam provides water and electricity to millions who like living in hot, dry country.  Of course, they don't want to live in hot, dry, desert!  They want green lawns, golf courses, and sprinklers to run through.  So the Colorado river, which once roared out into the Gulf of Mexico, now trickles into the Gulf.  Can you imagine, a river that carved the Grand Canyon, barely reaches the ocean.  The entire city of Las Vegas (which serves no useful purpose as far as I can see) would not/could not exist without the massive Hoover Dam.


Just a bit of a rant.  Back to the golf course wars!

-----Original Message-----
From: powderworks-admin@cs.colorado.edu
[mailto:powderworks-admin@cs.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Wesley Martin
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 7:13 AM
To: powderworks@cs.colorado.edu
Subject: [Powderworks] Re: Golf courses


Where I come from golf courses use tonnes of pesticides on a 
near daily basis, these are all allowed to run directly into 
the nearest stream, lake, or groundwater recharge area which 
suplies drinking water for the majority of the rural 
population. 

Irrigation is intense, if the water source is a well, a 
"cone of depression" will result where the water table near 
the golf course is lowered significantly. Often this 
lowering of the water table results in the wells of nearby 
homes going dry, in which case they must either have water 
trucked in or have their well drilled deeper at great 
expense. 

If the golf course uses a stream as a water source the 
impact can be even greater. I have seen a number of streams 
that used to flow past a golf course but now only flows as 
far as the pump where every drop of water is used to keep 
the course an unseasonal hue of green in the driest time of 
the year. This has a huge impact on fish, wildlife and 
wetlands found downstream of the course.

Sorry, it bothers me that golf courses have such a "green" 
image when often they have a far greater impact than the 
farm or pasture or forest that used the land previously.

Wes Martin

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