With Matt Keough
The last few years have been very challenging, in particular the last twelve months. Severe drought followed by the worst bushfire season in living memory then the icing on the Turd Pie Covid-19 and the shut down of the country.
Thankfully, some much needed rain washed out the fires, and hopefully the Corona is also under control. But in the background the drought is still lurking in the shadows.
Not all of the state has had drought relieving rain, some areas are still in drought, and I believe the long-range forecast is still below average, too average rainfall in most of the state.
Which brings me to water restrictions. A lot of the state negotiate with different entities, be that the local councils, or state water authority such as Sydney water or Hunter water, for use of potable water in times of restrictions. We as an association are trying to format a basic list of guidelines that can be taken to any water body to help with the negotiations for your water use. With most areas still in restrictions of some sort, unless we get a really wet winter, these restrictions will be here for next summer and will be tighter again.
In conjunction with NSW Golf Course Supers, we started negotiating with Sydney water last year (2019) for use of potable water for the greater Sydney and Wollongong areas. They virtually had no idea on what we use the water for, how much and how often and over winter period virtually zero. All they knew is that we had high-end turf and watered it, they charged us for it so we must be wasting it. That was evident by the many varied water exemptions we have received. So we have engaged a consultant, Peter from Water Wise, who has had dealings with water authorities in the past and is well respected by them. The idea was to gather some data and formulate a water consumption guideline, for level by level restrictions, that can be used not just in the Sydney region but also statewide. You might have seen the email sent out at the end of last year, the response wasn’t the greatest, but gave us some information to start with. At the moment water restrictions and exemptions are all ad hock across the state and we get very little input.
In reality we understand that if there is no water then we can not water our greens, that is a given, but we need to address the misconception that Bowling greens are water hogs and are wasting water. After some investigation we calculated that in just the Sydney region the TOTAL Bowling greens space was equivalent to ¾ of your average 18 hole golf course and total consumption of say your standard 2-3 green club per annum. was estimated at 1.2-1.8 megalitres. Some golf courses are pumping this out per night.
The end goal of this will be, to get a better understanding at State Government level of the amount of water we use, when we use it, what we are actually doing to be better with the water that we use and have a blue print that can be taken from region to region with a basic list of restrictions, level by level, that give us access to water and show we are doing our part to also reduce water use. In a nutshell some flexibility of when we use water. Perhaps even get some Government funding to improve water systems, better tanks and pumps, automatic systems with moisture sensors and rainfall sensors, perhaps even some resources to help individuals improve their water usage.
If anyone has had discussions with their local water authority and has any further input feel free to send either to Simon Cooper (simon@turfcareaus.com.au) or myself (matt.keough@engadinebowling.com.au). The more information we gather across the state the better we can negotiate our position.
