Are golf courses good for the environment?

Great Debates
41

I don’t want to be rude either. I have heard as much about pesticide and fertilizer use as the next guy.
I know there is visible evidence for the overuse of fertilizers. I have seen this on some golf courses where the ponds are overrun with algae. I have also seen photos of dead zones in oceans.
As for the overuse of herbicides, I know that these chemicals persist for many years. I know they enter our water supply. I suspect I am drinking them right now. What I have never seen is there impact on the larger ecosystem. Please provide a cite that responsible use of herbicides is harmful to the ecosystem.
We know they are there, we can measure them, we may be drinking them. I’m appreciate that you don’t want to provide pages of links but please provide one. The one you provided is more opinion than fact.
In my town they are banning the use of pesticides. I have no opinion of this either way. I understand that homeowners are the most irresponsible users of pesiticides. I’m wondering what the real basis for this ban is. What is the impact of residual pesticides? What organisms are being harmed? It seems like there are much bigger fish to fry such as the overuse of antibiotics.

As I stated, the golf courses I frequent appear to be healthy ecosystems. Assume I beamed down from planet X. I would think that golf courses are the pinnacle of human engineering since they provide leisure space for humans and a benefit the ecosystem.

Thanks to everyone who has provided evidence for and against. After reading them all, here in southern Ontario, I am still giving a thumbs up to golf courses.

42

I don’t want to quibble over that one United Nations link, but I don’t think this statement is an opinion:
Pollution from the large quantities of pesticides, fertilisers and herbicides (about 1500 kg a year) required to maintain golf courses can lead to habitat degradation, and can cause health problems. In both the Sarasota Bay and the Corpus Christy National Estuary Program assessments, lawn care practices on golf courses were found to be major sources of nitrate and phosphate contamination of the bay from storm water runoff. Exacerbating their impacts is the fact that golf resorts are more and more often situated in or near protected areas or areas where resources are limited.

I think it’s more of a conclusion based on research.

I don’t know if you were talking about the link to EPA’s Priority Chemical web page. There are some conclusions on that page, too. Hammering out that list of PCs was a contentious, arduous task based on a lot of research. That list was supposed to be shorter, but there are so many toxic chemicals that the staff wanted to target that they agreed to go over 26. Click on one of the chemical fact sheets. They’re out of date and not the best ones I’ve seen, but they give you basic info on some of the worst pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides.

Let’s take lindane as an example. The chemical fact sheet states, among other things:

What are the health effects of exposure to
hexachlorocyclohexane?
Workers exposed to HCH gamma- while
making pesticides showed signs of lung
irritation, heart disorders, blood disorders,
headache, convulsions, and changes in sex
hormones. Humans and animals exposed to
large amounts of HCH gamma- died.
Reports show that some people who
swallowed high doses of HCH gamma- had
seizures and some died. Others exposed to
very large doses developed blood disorders
and had seizures. People who breathed HCH
gamma- in the workplace developed blood
disorders, experienced dizziness, headaches,
and showed changes in the levels of sex
hormones.
When animals were fed high doses of HCH
gamma-, they had convulsions and went into a
coma. Animals exposed to moderate or
average doses showed kidney and liver
problems (effects)
and were also less able to fight off infections.
The Department of Health and Human
Services has determined that HCH gammamay
very well be a carcinogen (cancer causing
substance). Rats exposed to HCH gamma showed
evidence of liver cancer.

There are references at the bottom of the sheet in case you want to pursue the sources of these conclusions.

What about the other link I gave earlier, about the risk of cancers, etc, at golf courses? Did you read that? The conclusions there were made by the American Chemical Society. Even they can admit this stuff is dangerous. Frankly, I was surprised by that. That’s not how they used to operate, in my experience.

43

On the golf-course-versus-housing-development front, down in Fernandina Beach where my parents live there’s this huge debate about the Egan’s (sp?) Creek Greenway. Naturally salt water, was made freshwater a long time ago, recently allowed to return to saltwater. Very controversial. One article I read on it made the point that while birds are free to fly around and sip from retaining ponds and such in the housing developments, the mammals are out of luck for fresh water except on the golf courses at the south end of the island. So if you take the viewpoint that the golf course would be houses otherwise, which in many although not all places is absolutely true, a golf course is much less restricting to movement than a subdivision. It would be nice if they planned courses with a better understanding of migration patterns and such to take advantage of that fact - I know greenskeepers hate deer and other hoofed animals, but the golfers like seeing them at any rate.

44

Here’s something else you might find interesting. I did. Interesting, shameful, embarrassing, demoralizing, and a bunch of other stuff, too.

45

Thanks for those links. I can’t argue with any of them.
Of course pesticides are harmful. Let me narrow my question.

Is there a safe background level for pesticides?
I assume there is since there are safe levels for lead, hexane etc.

Are areas surrounding golf course above or below this level?
My guess is that this depends on the area. An small body of water surrounded by one or more golf courses might be more susceptable to their impact than a golf course carved out of forest.

Can golf courses be managed to be a benefit to the surrounding ecosystem?
A least of few posters have said that they can provide some benefit. The use of chemicals on golf course can be greatly reduced. Perhaps the two courses you mentioned could have been managed better.

As for the increase in biodiversity, no one has argued that. Surely this is a benefit. I understand the drawbacks with regard to chemical usage a little more clearly now.

46

Well, solkoe, you’re certainly asking all the right questions.

Most people will tell you that there is a safe background level for pesticides. Given that there are a lot of different pesticides, I would agree with that for some of them. For others I would say no.

Here’s something about safe levels of lead that is interesting. It says that cadmium and lead, at levels deemed safe, are implicated in coronary artery disease. It also points out that the acceptable lead level has decreased over the years. I don’t know if there were follow-up studies to this or anything, I simply offer it as an example. For me, the question has always been, “What do you mean by safe?”

This fact sheet states: In children, an elevated blood-lead level (commonly abbreviated as “EBL”) consists of a level of lead in blood that is high enough to cause adverse health effects. This measurement is made in units of micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood (abbreviated as µg/dL). While an elevated blood-lead level is generally considered to start at 10µg/dL, there is a growing body of research arguing that exposure to lead can produce adverse health effects in young children at levels as low as 2µg/dL. Most observers would agree that at the very least there is no known “safe” level of lead in blood for children under the age of six or for pregnant women.

As you’ve seen from that article about the protests by EPA staff, there’s not a lot of reason to place 100% faith in EPA’s assurances that a given pesticide currently approved for use is “safe.” More on that.
In any case, here’s a summary of how determinations are made. It’s basically a matter of estimating toxicity of the chemical and exposure to people.

The problem I have with all this is the uncertainty. Here’s an example: For example, EPA may prohibit a pesticide from being used on certain crops because consuming too much food treated with the pesticide may result in an unacceptable risk to consumers.

To me, that means, okay… this pesticide is out there. Let’s hope nobody sprays it on or near the wrong food crop!

To me, risk assessments have always boiled down to this: if we allow x amount of this chemical to be present, too many people will get cancer. So we have to lower the amount to y, and then only one or two out of 10,000 will get cancer. That’s acceptable. Our work is done.

Yeah, I’ve never been one to spout the party line.

For one thing, I think it sucks for those two people who are going to get cancer. For another thing, these analyses rarely (if ever) account for the combined effects of having two or more toxics present at the same time. So they are not realistic. You will rarely find just one toxin in any given environment. Finally, if I can express this correctly… there are so many instances of cancer and similar diseases these days that most people will never know how they got them, much less be able to prove how they got them. I fear this allows the continued use of some products that probably should be banned. No one thing is culpable when there are so many possible culprits.

Are most people safe? Yes. Is everyone safe? No. And somehow, we have all agreed that that is acceptable.

Honestly, I wouldn’t know. Most of them are probably below acceptable levels, as they should be. I’m sure that, just because of the sheer number of golf courses, some of them would turn out to be above acceptable levels. Of course, what’s true on one day may be different on another, as chemicals will dissipate.

Well, in terms of a cost/benefit analysis, probably. That’s not how I would go, tho, because I think applying economic models to environmental systems is a flawed propostion. What you’re talking about is comparing apples and oranges. Does the benefit of creating a wetland environment (or whatever) outweigh the damage from pesticide use (or whatever)? This goes back to my original post. In my opinion, when you undertake an endeavor like this, all you can do is minimize the damage it causes. Like when I recycle, I make my environmental footprint smaller, but I do not erase it.

As for increasing biodiversity… I don’t know. I do know that not everybody thinks it’s a great idea. Me, again, I lean toward not making too many changes in the existing conditions.

Whew… this is like work. Interesting, tho.

47

I’ve always wondered why golf courses couldn’t just have non-irrigated native plants on at least most of their surface, rather than having to consist mostly of beautifully manicured and heavily watered lawn.

Yeah, I can see the case for having the putting greens themselves be well-kept lawns with a consistent surface where players can make the best use of their putting skills. But why can’t tee areas and fairways be more like a short-cropped “rough”? Why can’t golfers just adapt to using a less smooth surface for most of the course, and treat its unevenness as just another challenge of the game?

48

Are golf courses bad compared to what. Courses are closing and shopping malls and subdivisions are coming in. Concrete and chem lawn, now thats environmentally friendly.
Courses are aware of the negative press and have been working on making them better. Even so ,would it be right to compare them to a virgin forest or a subdivision. ?

49

I’m curious what kind of non-irrigated native plants you’re thinking about. But as far as the need for fairways to be level and well-kept, the concept of the game is usually that you should not be penalized for hitting a good shot. If you hit a drive down the middle of the fairway, the course should give you a fair chance at hitting another good shot. Golf is incredibly difficult even under ideal course conditions, but pock-marked fairways make things unfair. It’s actually possible to damage the face of your clubs, too, which sucks bigtime considering the cost of golf equipment. (I’m thinking of one local course which has three holes with really terrible fairways – I often consider picking up my ball and skipping these holes. Why should I pay good money for shoddy maintenance?)