Storm Water Retention Pond Update

A lot of progress has been made by the town of Clayton in the past couple of weeks with the construction of a large retention pond near the maintenance facility.  Because the town is redoing the road on Ridgeway Dr. water will get onto the golf course quicker and with more volume than in the past.   So to subdue many of the past drainage issues plus prevent any further problems, a large retention pond was needed to hold storm runoff in the 40 acres southeast of the golf course.  Storm water in the pond will then run into the underground drain tiling system we currently have on the golf course.  This will not prevent every storm from causing the course to flood but it will greatly reduce the amount of golf course closures we have in the future.  In the past a large river from #12 fairway to #16 tee prevented us from opening the golf course during large rain falls.  This also backed up our tiling system so that #11 fairway held water and created a large pond at the bottom of the range across #11 fairway and over to the maintenance facility.  In my 5 years at Ridgeway we have had to cancel a number of large events and good golfing days simply because of this storm drainage problem.  This retention pond project should fix many of those issues.

Another issue we discovered was that the 12” tile that runs underneath the course from #12 fairway all the way #16 tee is partially clogged.  We are currently looking at getting a company in to unclog this tile line.  This is important because this tile is the main artery to drain water during massive rain events.   Unclogging this tile line plus the addition of a large retention pond will really go a long way in stopping golf course closures in the future. 

The above picture taken from east of #12 fairway near the out of bounds and is really the only disruption on the golf course itself.   This is where a large manhole sits and ties in the retention pond water with our existing tile underneath the golf course.

 

This picture is of the spill way area were water would actually run out onto the golf course if the rain got heavy enough.   As deep as this pond is (~8 feet) and by unclogging our existing tile system this should happen very infrequently. 

 

This picture is taken looking east toward Ridgeway Dr. just off of hole #12.  As you can see the pond is deep so that it can hold a large amount of water.

 

This is the large drain at the bottom of the pond where collected storm water begins to go underground over to #12 manhole from the first picture that was taken.

This picture was taken looking northwest standing on Ridgeway Dr.  This picture does not do justice to how deep the pond really is…

And lastly this picture is of the new driveway for the maintenance facility which was moved to make room for the pond.  The new entrance is 80 yards farther east past the other side of the new sod nursery and then turns and runs parallel to #11.   

 

The town has a few loose ends to tie up before this project is complete. 

1. Grass the pond, pond banks, area left of #12 fairway, and the ditch along Ridgeway Dr.
2. Blacktop the new maintenance road.
3. Pick up and remove some small soil piles along the nursery
4. Add some shrubs and trees near the new maintenance road so it is less visible from #11.

Stay tuned for more updates on this project and all other golf course maintenance activities.