Ronald Turco, Purdue Univ, Agronomy Dept, 915 West State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907
Created wetlands used on a golf courses have the potential for accepting, storing and filtering runoff from within the course and from neighboring areas. Purdue University has recently completed a four year study on a renovated 18-hole golf course to evaluate the effect of created wetlands on pollutants originating from both urban runoff and golf course tile drainage system. During storm events, golf course wetlands were effective at reducing 11 of the 17 non-zero parameters. These included NO3, NO2, NH3, P, chemical oxygen demand, total organic carbon, Ca, Cl, Mg, Mn, and Na. (A total of 83 chemicals were measured but only 17 were above zero.) Therefore, stormwater exiting the golf course wetlands was an insignificant source of contamination for the watershed. During nonstorm events, Al, Fe, Na and SO4 were elevated in concentration in water at the discharge point as compared to water at the entrance point of the wetland. However, during nonstrom operations all of the water was held within the golf course’s wetland system resulting in no flow or discharge. Our study showed that a golf course wetland can exert a positive effect on quality of water compared to water entering the course or water in the larger watershed. The created wetland system in our study was efficient at improving quality of water originating during storm runoff and daily flow from golf course tile drainage.
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