Golf Course goes "greener"

Whitehall - The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is helping small business owners to reduce their overall impact on the environment.

One business, Bent Pine Golf Club in Whitehall, took advantage of the Pollution Prevention Program to save water and energy.

Golfing is naturally a green business, but you might not think it's a "green" business.  Keeping that turf healthy requires constant watering, especially in the heat of summer.

"It took about ten to twelve hours to water the entire course," says Scot Southland of Southland Corporation.

Now it only takes six hours using a new sprinkler system the course paid for through a low interest loan from the pollution prevention program.

"It's about a $250,000 system. We have a really low key simple system," says Scot.

Simple, because the watering is controlled by a computer.

Unlike the old system that required an employee to manually turn the sprinklers on and off.

"We'll probably save $1,000 in fuel driving the course this year," says Scot. "The energy from the pump station running 10-12 hours a night will be cut by 20-30% at least, over the course of the season."

Saving that precious resource for the future.

Scot says, "We're going to save anywhere from 7-9 million gallons of water.  Could be as high as 10 million gallons with all the rain we're getting."

And with the perfectly "green" greens, the golfers don't even notice the changes.