Jekyll Island’s Golf Courses Go Green
Friday, May 30th, 2008
On Jekyll Island, conservation is paramount. Great golf courses are pretty important, too. It has not always been easy for golf course managers to balance the demands of golf with their responsibility to the natural environment. Now, the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses (ACSP) offers golf courses a way to protect the environment using low or no cost management practices. The ACSP for Golf Courses is an education and certification program that promotes ecologically sound land management and the conservation of natural resources on establishedgolf courses.
John Niedhardt and Jim Curry, golf superintendents for the Jekyll Island Authority, have used the program to blend environmentally responsible maintenance practices into their day-to-day operations. They followed the Standard Environmental Management Practices set forth by the ACSP, which are the basis of the certification program. They include six major areas of attention: Environmental Planning, Wildlife and Habitat Management, Chemical Use Reduction and Safety, Water Conservation, Water Quality Management and Outreach and Education. Because of the steady efforts of Niehart, Curry and others, major progress has been made. This includes everything from reducing pesticide and fertilizer use to monitoring water quality, to adding bird nests along the golf course. As a result, the Pine Lakes Golf Course on Jekyll Island is very near to being certified.
Golfer support of a course’s environmental management program is essential to its long term success, making Outreach and Education an important component of the certification process. Christa Frangiamore, conservation manager for the Jekyll Island Authority, has been working as part of the Jekyll Island team to complete these requirements of the certification process. As a means of educating the public while also improving the landscape, a wetland demonstration garden is being planned for the Pine Lakes Golf Course. “We are going to use a runoff retention pond to create an attractive wildlife garden that will host native plants and wildlife,” Frangiamore said. Several things will be accomplished using this educational tool. “We can show people an attractive and effective way to deal with rain water runoff,” said Frangiamore. “The garden will hold native wetland plants, and people can get ideas for their own landscaping projects.” The garden will naturally attract birds and butterflies thus aiding those volunteers who are compiling native species lists for butterflies, birds and “herps” (amphibians and reptiles). Most of the work to make the Pine Lakes Golf Course a top notch, environmentally responsible golf course has been done. The addition of the wildlife garden and several other planned Outreach and Education initiatives will help push the Pine Lakes Golf Course a step closer to certification.
