Golfers Want Ritzy Club Exempt From Water Rule

Golfers at the ritzy North Ranch Country Club, hoping to putt on greens unsullied by recycled sewer water, on Wednesday night asked the Calleguas Municipal Water district to grant an exception to a state law requiring them to use reclaimed water.

Environmentalists have encouraged the use of reclaimed water for irrigation to conserve drinking water. But country club officials said while reclaimed water may be good enough for highway median strips, and even some country club fairways or public golf courses, using it alone on the grass at North Ranch Country Club in Thousand Oaks won’t keep the greens quite green enough.

“It’s a very exclusive club, so it always has to be in prime condition,” said Steve Montanez, golf course superintendent in an interview. “That’s important.”

State law requires that golf courses with access to reclaimed water use it to irrigate their turf. North Ranch Country Club has agreed to accept about 140 million gallons a year of reclaimed water from new pipes installed by Calleguas, but the club also wants to continue irrigating its grass with about 22 million gallons a year of drinking water, enough to fill the annual water needs of 280 people.

The water board Wednesday heard presentations from Montanez and Calleguas General Manager Donald R. Kendall on the issue. The board will vote at a later meeting on a transition plan that would convert North Ranch from potable water use to reclaimed water.

Montanez said that without flushing the salty sewer water down through the turf with pure drinking water, the course’s lush grass might wither and die. He also worries that the reclaimed water will make the golf course smell.

North Ranch Country Club’s concerns are overblown, said Bill Hamilton, superintendent of Sherwood Country Club, which has been using reclaimed water for five years.

“There’s no odor at all with this water. It’s great,” Hamilton said. “You can walk by a sprinkler when it’s going and you can’t smell anything.”

Hamilton said Sherwood does not use drinking water to flush its fairways, as North Ranch plans to do. But Hamilton said Sherwood does use drinking water to occasionally flush its greens, as North Ranch will.

Cassandra Auerbach, a Sierra Club activist who follows local water issues, agreed that salts from reclaimed water sometimes accumulate in the soil and need to be flushed. But she called for the golf course to use as much reclaimed water as possible, and for a “full disclosure” of the country club’s reasons for wanting an exception.

Montanez said environmentalists in general are unfamiliar with the special requirements of growing grass on golf courses.