PHASE I WATER RESOURCE ASSESSMENTS
(The key to successful water supply development)

During the early 1990's, a development company bought a large farm in Ohio for the purpose of constructing a golf course community.  The land was beautiful with woods, wetlands, and meadows.  A large reservoir managed by the local municipality for drinking water supplies occurred next to the property.  The land had all the potential for a premier golf course with one exception, the land had no available ground water resources for irrigation purposes. The developers approached the city to obtain permission to pump water from the reservoir and the city turned them down.  With no streams or springs on the land to obtain water, the developers were stuck with no reliable means to irrigate the course greens.

A construction company was building an 18-hole golf course in northwest Ohio.  The land for the course overlaid a vast, regional limestone aquifer from which many residential and municipalities in northwest Ohio obtain their water.  Since groundwater was plentiful in this area,  no attention was given to the feasibility of obtaining the water.  The course was constructed and the sod was ordered for the greens.  A drilling firm was contracted to drill the irrigation well in advance of the sod's arrival.  The well was drilled and tested, but its maximum production capacity was only a fraction of the total production needed.  In desperation, a second well was drilled 500-feet from the first well, and its total production was one-half the first well's rate.  An evaluation of the geologic/hydrogeologic literature revealed the golf course occurred in an area that frequently produced low-yielding wells due to the geologic properties of the bedrock in this area.   

The Trouble with Water
As illustrated in the two case studies above, a lack of planning in advance of developing the water supply proves troublesome when the time comes to construct it.  Problems often include:   

• Unexpected and/or increased costs to develop the water supply (e.g. more wells or
  deeper wells are needed than originally planned for).
• Delays in construction schedules.
• Insufficient quantities of available groundwater.
• Poor natural or ambient groundwater quality (costs incurred to treat the water).
• Contaminated ground water resources.
• Conflicting competition for available water.

• Land use restrictions governing ground water use or availability.

Invariably, one or more of the above problems increase the cost of construction and operation for golf courses and may very  well jeopardize the entire project.  Costs may include fees for  redesigning layouts, purchasing/operating extra equipment, lawyer fees and lost revenue.   Although some extra costs may be unavoidable due to natural physical limitations imposed by the land, many can be avoided by doing some "homework" on the property during the  planning and design phase of the project. 

Steps to assessing, planning and developing a golf course's water supply should be done as early in the project as feasible, starting during the appraisal and acquisition phase if possible.   Land acquisitions should have a Phase I and/or II real estate assessment conducted, and are often required by a lender before finalizing the sale.  For potential golf courses, this is a particularly vital step as the real estate assessment will examine and identify any on-site or neighboring off-site activities (historical or recent) that have potential for contaminating the water supply (there have been golf courses that could not develop their own ground water supply because regulators were concerned the irrigation wells would cause contaminated ground water to migrate from adjacent properties onto their site). 

The first step for evaluating the land should be a Phase I water resource assessment.   The purpose of the Phase I water resource assessment is to identify the major prospects for development including their physical properties such as aquifer type, lateral extent, thickness, depth to water, and potential water quality.  Also important is identifying the key weaknesses associated with the prospective water supply including information gaps.  Identifying the major weaknesses is particularly important since they are the primary "drivers" for the eventual cost of  construction of the water supply.  The assessment entails collecting and evaluating available sources of geologic, hydrogeologic and related information.  If possible, the assessor should conduct a site walk of the property to get a closer perspective of the "lay of the land".

A quality Phase I water resource assessment should address the following issues of concern:

Since the Phase I water resource assessment is the "first-look" at a parcel of land, its information should be considered preliminary and used as the foundation for making informed decisions on the next steps needed to develop the water supply.  The next steps will vary depending upon the quality and quantity of existing site information.  The level of effort needed can range from immediate drilling and installation of the irrigation well(s) up to a multi-phased exploration program using soil/rock borings, test wells, aquifer testing, and/or geophysical exploration techniques.