The POA Board of Directors on Tuesday approved $1.88 million for the Golf Course Irrigation Project. The cost of the project will be funded from the Repair and Replacement Fund and will not affect the member dues.
The new irrigation system is expected to save the POA $105,000 annually. The engineer identified a 14.6 percent water savings, plus a power savings and a reduced annual maintenance cost. Additionally, there is a potential grant of $98,000 the POA may receive by completing this project. The application for the grant was submitted on November 28, 2020.
Since 2017, the Green Committee has put in a significant amount of work to identify and record the failures in the golf course irrigation system. The committee recommended a new high-efficiency system to replace the old and outdated equipment.
The current golf course irrigation system was installed in 1996, and many of the components are beyond their life expectancy. The weather station has been out of service for about a year. The irrigation controllers are deteriorating regularly and parts are scarce, according to the POA.
Additionally, the irrigation heads fail frequently and a lot of maintenance labor is spent on patching the system. Two of the irrigation pumps are outdated and in need of replacement and the underground lateral lines are failing regularly. Tests showed that the main irrigation pump was operating at 50 percent.
In July of 2020, the board approved $87,000 to design the new irrigation system. In December 2020, the Request for Proposal was put out by the design engineer. Four bids were received on January 15. The bids ranged from $1.558 million to $2.060 million, not including $320,000 for the two pump stations.
The work is expected to start on March 1 and be completed in June. The months of March through June were selected for the project because of their typically mild temperatures that will allow for portions of the irrigation system to be shut down for a few days at a time without severe damage to the turf.
The contractor will work on one hole at a time, leaving 17 holes open for play. The project should have minimum impact on golfers and tournaments.
