Pelican’s Nest Golf Club – Source Water Blending Transcription

TRANSCRIPTION

[Intro music plays]

[00:10]

>> JAN BEL JAN: I’m Jan Bel Jan, ASGCA member, Golf Course Architect for Pelican’s Nest. So we’re here at Pelican’s Nest Golf Club in Bonita Springs, Florida. This is a project on which I’ve worked since its inception, did the original design work when I was with Tom Fazio back in the early eighties.

>> JASON ZIMMERMAN: My name is Jason Zimmerman, I am the director of Greens and Grounds here at Pelican’s Nest Golf Club. This golf course was built in 1985. The wells became contaminated, so the salt levels were getting to the point where we were actually losing grass, plants, flowers, things of that nature.

>> JAN BEL JAN: In 2007 and 2008, there was an intense drought here in South Florida. Then another one followed in 2011 and 2012. In 2007, 2008, the drought was so fierce that the club had to shut down 18 holes because there was only enough water to irrigate 18 holes of the 36.

At that time, there was no effluent available from the city of Bonita Springs, so there was nothing that could be done except to maintain only 18 golf holes until the rainy season began.

[01:15]

>> JAN BEL JAN: Because of Watertronics who had a blending process where the city water, plus groundwater, could be blended to irrigate.

>> JASON ZIMMERMAN: 2013 of December is when Watertronics’ Metro Pumping Systems and myself, installed the system. The installation couldn’t ask anything better. We started on a Tuesday morning, pulled the old station out, Wednesday morning delivery, by Wednesday evening I was running water. The detail, the organization between the electricians at Metro Pumping System and Watertronics has just made it so easy to accomplish what we’ve wanted to.

>> JAN BEL JAN: When The effluent became available, then that made the blending process provided by water tonics even more valuable because the effluent could then be blended with well water. 1.25 miles of 12-inch irrigation pipe was run to this pump house from US 41 to make it possible for the blending process to occur.

>> JASON ZIMMERMAN: We are currently blending up to 350,000 gallons a day of reclaimed water. By blending, we’re able to reduce our salts, almost 65%, which we’re getting down to a very acceptable level for the golf course. Moving forward now it’s 2019, this property has three pump stations. So Station One here is our main blending station. Station Three is what we’ve just replaced that irrigates 40 acres worth, or five holes.

The next phase in the next 18 to 24 months will be go to our final station, Number Two, which is a booster station. We’re going to be transferring that panel over to Watertronics. Therefore, all three pump stations will be able to talk to each other through the Watertronics and Water Vision app.

[02:53]

>> JASON ZIMMERMAN: Okay, here we are inside of Station One. Here we’re talking about the blending system that Janet and I referenced earlier. So as you can see, the second line coming in here is the one we talked about that brings the reclaimed water over a mile and a quarter into the pump station.

What you’re hearing is actually the EBV of the Electronic Butterfly Valve. That’s something that was developed by Watertronics that actually helps and works in conjunction with the VFD of the pump station.

So what you’re hearing now is the pumps are about to kick on with the demand. As the pump kicks on and flow goes out, the EBV will open up and it will actually let the reclaim water dumped into the wet well, and I’ll be blending as the water goes out.

So as you walk over here, we talked about the panel itself and yes, we do, I can see this with Watertronics and through the WaterVision app. Not only can I view the pump station the temperature, but I can also see how much reclaim water is going out at that time.

And then what you’re seeing up here is actually TDS or real time salts. The top number is a sensor that’s out in the lake behind us that measures what’s in there, and then what actually hits here is what after a little bit of blending is what’s now going out, and that sensor is located right over here.

Now, if you can zoom in and see the numbers, they’re very similar. This is July, it’s rainy season. So right now we’re getting so much rain. That’s nice. Mother Nature’s diluting the ponds.

If you were here in January, February, March, this top number may be as high as 22- 2300 parts per million, which is very detrimental to Bermuda Grass. And then when we blend, we’re able to get this down between 7- 800 parts per million, which is huge as far as the success of growing Grass.

[04:27]

>> JASON ZIMMERMAN:

It’s amazing. The amount of detail work and one of the things I love about the company is the customization. There is not just, you want A, B, or C, everything is customized exactly to fit your mold, which again, is huge for this property because it does have three pump stations, there’s a lot of very unique things that we have to focus on, Watertronics has done just that and more.

[Music plays louder for outro]