Fore!
|
|
The Hillandale Golf Course stormwater wetland in Durham, N.C., began as a solution for the unsightly muddy pool next to the course’s parking lot. NC Cooperative Extension’s Neuse Education Team members and local cooperators not only created a wetland area that was aesthetically pleasing, but also environmentally friendly.
Former NET member Craven Hudson and current member Bill Hunt, along with John Cox of Durham’s stormwater services department, proposed to transform the two-thirds of an acre ditch into a wetland and were granted almost $16,000. The wetland now treats runoff from a 90-acre watershed, including a U.S. I-85 expansion area that eventually drains into Ellerbe Creek. Hunt notes: “Hillandale Golf Course Stormwater Wetland provided the first demonstration wetland retrofit in Durham County. Hundreds of design professionals have visited this attractive demonstration site.” Says Hudson: “This project was one of those rare ones where everybody wins. Roy [Clarke, Hillandale superintendent] had problems every year with flooding and maintaining this area, so naturally he was excited about the wetland proposal. Bill and I found the funding and the trustees liked that. Now we have a high-profile stormwater education site, and Roy has a beautiful wetland.” The wetland is in an ideal spot for a demonstration project. Hillandale is public and with the wetland running between the parking lot and the tenth hole tee, everyone who comes to the course sees it. The team has also put up educational signs to help people understand what the wetland is and how it works.
In the years since its 2000 construction, the wetland has filled in with vegetation as predicted. Unlike a potentially unsightly swamp ecosystem that many people associate with wetlands, Hillandale’s hosts various year-round blooming flowers and plants. Fish and dragonflies make the wetland home, keeping the mosquito population in check. On a good day, a golfer may even see a blue heron. The wetland slowed the creek’s flow, decreasing bank erosion, which diminishes the amount of sediment entering the water. The saturated conditions and the vegetation work together to purify the water of excess nutrients and chemicals from the I-85 expansion, and the wetland is mostly self-sufficient, needing dredging only every few years. Since construction, the wetland has been maintained by both Clarke and the Hillandale Golf Course staff and a volunteer team, the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, directed by Steve Hiltner. This wetland’s success encouraged course managers to make even more water-quality improvements. They are now in the middle of an immense stream restoration project on a segment of Ellerbe Creek that runs through the entire length of golf course, restoring 6,000 feet along the banks after years of erosion. -- Kathleen Powers |
||||
|
