Golf course wetlands score as environmental tool
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Agronomy graduate student
Amanda Lopez draws a water sample from a pond on the Kampen Golf
Course. Lopez is part of a research team studying how wetlands
can filter water from commercial and residential areas to protect
the environment. Photo by Tom Campbell
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By Susan A. Steeves
Golfers may see it as just another water hazard, but, in fact, the
constructed wetlands on Purdue University's Kampen Course prevent potential
pollutants from damaging the environment.
Purdue researchers also have found that the constructed wetlands get
better at improving water quality as they age. Their findings could
promote the use of urban golf courses to protect similar areas.
"This is an ongoing study of how created wetlands on a golf course
can filter water from commercial and residential areas to protect the
environment," said Zac Reicher, Purdue Department of Agronomy turf
specialist.
The five-year water monitoring project, begun in 1998, uses three wetland
cells (ponds) incorporated into the renovated Pete Dye-designed golf
course.
The researchers wanted to determine whether constructed wetlands on
a golf course could improve water quality by reducing or eradicating
chemicals such as atrazine, chloride, nitrogen nitrate, ammonia nitrogen,
organic carbon, phosphorus, aluminum, iron, potassium and manganese
before the water entered natural waterways.
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