Little Bennett Pump Station Upgrade

Did you have any idea an irrigation pumping system was so complex?  

Little Bennett has just upgraded from an antiquated, energy-wasting system to a new state of the art control system that will provide dramatically improved and safer performance, use less electricity, and give the superintendent the ability to see what is happening at the pump station from anywhere there is internet access!

Golfers may occasionally wonder what it takes to irrigate a golf course.  An 18-hole golf course can cover anywhere from 100-300 acres of land and requires miles and miles of pipe to deliver water.  At least 2 to 4 pumps are required to keep pressure and move water across the golf course.  These pumps can provide up to 2500 gallons per minute(GPM).  Main pumps are powered by 50-75 hp motors and most courses utilize a small pump called either a jockey or pressure maintenance pump.  These smaller pumps are powered by 5-25 hp motors.  The small pumps are there to maintain pressure on the irrigation lines and for low flow operations.  An example of low flow would be 1 or 2 irrigation heads running or multiple hoses being used.  Pump station output is usually 10 times the horsepower of all your motors combined in GPM. 

Little Bennett runs two 75hp main pumps and one 25hp jockey pump.  The pumps are 20 feet long and are located in a wet well inside the pump house.  The pumps draw water for the golf course from the irrigation pond on hole #10.  The station requires 460 volt 3-phase incoming power.  The system was designed with a pressure tank and regulating valve to deliver 1800 GPM at 125 psi.  There's a panel that controls motor/pump starts and stops and is run by a programmable logic controller(PLC).  The PLC controls the station by inputs that regulate when pumps turn on and off based on pressure and flow.  The tank is designed to build pressure on the upstream(between the pumps and the valve) side.  When pressure drops on the downstream(between the valve and outflow pipe to the golf course) side of the regulating valve(e.g., heads running on the golf course), the valve opens and allows pressure to equalize.  When pressure in the tank becomes equal to outflow pressure the valve opens completely and allows water to flow freely.  The PLC calls for a pump to turn on and it comes on at full speed for however long it takes to build pressure back up and sustain flow.  This is what is called a fixed-speed system and this is very energy inefficient. 

old pump station control cabinet with PLC

old pressure tank

We decided that it was time to upgrade our control capability and take advantage of new technology.  The jockey pump and regulating valve were worn out and not functioning well and there was concern of interior deterioration of the pressure tank.  We've had to adjust our effective output down to 1000 GPM to prevent the system from shutting down.  The pump station was faulting more often than it would run successfully due to high and low pressure situations and component failure inside the cabinet.  The control cabinet was also becoming obsolete and components were either very expensive or impossible to find. 

The best time of year to do any work to a pump station is late fall/early winter when the need for irrigation is minimal.  We knew that we would have no capability to pump water for at least 7 days once work was started.  Contractors were selected for this specialized work and work began the week after Thanksgiving.

The work to be done included demolishing the cabinet, valve, and tank.  It also included removing and replacing the jockey pump and motor.  A new control cabinet would be put in place and a new manifold and section of pipe would replace the tank and valve.  The new cabinet would contain two variable frequency drives(VFD) that control the motors and pumps.  The VFD regulates the amount of power supplied to the motor and only allows the pumps to turn at the speed required to deliver the amount of water that is needed.  This is very energy efficient.  Radio receivers would be installed at the pump house and maintenance shop so that we could view real time pump performance.  This would also allow the greens staff to view the pump station PLC screen at any time and from anywhere using remote log-in to the irrigation computer.  In the future the radio communication will allow us to integrate the pump with the irrigation control computer for truly optimized pump performance.

Here are the main project phases in pictures:

Demolition of the old tank

Demolition of valve and control cabinet

Ready for manifold

New manifold going in

Manifold attached and skid primed

Carefully moving the new control cabinet in the door

New cabinet in place on the skid

Crane setting up to remove old jockey pump and motor

Pump coming out through opening in the roof

New pump going in

New pump installed and skid freshly painted

new, state-of-the-art, control cabinet PLC interface

Installation of radio receiver at maintenance building

With the work now completed, we expect to have a much more efficient pumping system.  We should realize a significant reduction in energy usage and associated cost.  Since we have a better functioning station, we should be able to effectively run at a higher GPM than in the past.  This will shorten the amount of time that it takes to run irrigation programs.  High and low pressure faults will mostly be eliminated with the new control system.  Dangerous pressure swings will also be eliminated and that should lower the number of pipe breaks we face every year.  This is a crucial infrastructure upgrade that benefits the golf course but is not something our golfers would normally see!

Matt Burton

Golf Course Superintendent

Little Bennett Golf Course

Anatomy of preparing the golf course after a major storm!

Last Friday's derecho that left so much damage in its wake in its rapid 8-hour trip from Chicago to the Atlantic Ocean, put our maintenance crews to one of their biggest tests in recent memory.  Seven facilities were left without power, phones, and/or internet access.  Hundreds and hundreds of trees were damaged or felled around our golf courses, and the number one priority all the time is to get our golf courses open as quickly as possible and minimize the impact on playability for our customers.

(***First of all, I want to say that I will put our maintenance crews up against those of any golf course around when it comes to the size of the labor force with what we can accomplish and the conditions we can provide to you, and I am very proud to be a part of such a hard-working team! )

Here were are now Friday evening, a full 7 days later and we still have 3 facilities relying on generators to run our pump stations, and one maintenance shop (Falls Road) running essentials (like our well pump, ice machine, lights, and irrigation computer - more on that later) on generators.

Here's the typical scenario many of our superintendents and maintenance teams encountered on Saturday morning:  They enter the property as normal as early as 4:00 a.m. in order to prepare for tee times that could start by 5:45.  Under "normal" circumstances, every weekend morning is really a race against time to do normal "first job" preparations of mowing & rolling greens, course setup, and raking bunkers.  The supervisor on duty has brought in the appropriate number of staff, typically 3 - 5, to take care of these jobs.

Some maintenance crews were further abbreviated because some staff could not get out of their neighborhoods to come to work!  This was the case at Falls Road, where only 2 crew members out of 5 scheduled could make it in, so 3 other managers came in to help - the mechanic, myself, and the other assistant (who also happened to be working at the AT&T National at Congressional all week, but since grounds staff was let go in the morning while they still decided whether to even open the course for play, he came back to Falls Road to work).

So last weekend, with our already typically shorter staff on weekends who normally just prepare greens, bunkers, setup, water coolers, there was a big wrench thrown in to the picture!  Massive course damage took place on many of our properties including downed trees, flooded bunkers, and literally thousands of branches littering the golf course.  So what do we do?

The number one focus is greens.  Take away the greens mowers, and I can still roll greens to achieve good playability  (=SUM +1 or +2 guys to help with cleanup).  Take away the bunker guy since the course is trashed (=SUM +1 more), and now I have 2-3 workers who can help with the storm cleanup with still allowing me to change cups/tee markers AND roll greens.  Again, greens first.  So we'll blow off the greens in front of the roller and do our best to get cups changed as well depending on the volume of cleanup. If we can't get cups changed, at least there's still a hole there from yesterday.

One worker, or sometimes a supervisor depending again on what other staff are able to accomplish, will immediately get on a big tractor blower and begin blowing the majority of debris off of tees and fairways in front of play.  If it is the supervisor on duty who will get on the tractor blower, he has to make a sweep of the entire property quickly, which he usually does before or immediately after staff arrive anyway, and give orders to his staff before getting on the blower.

Other staff that are available, once greens are blown off, will go in numerical order around the course dragging large branches off into the rough or into the woods in order clear as wide a path as possible for golfers.  If any trees are down that are directly affecting play, those have to be cut up and moved out of the way as well.  Staff may choose to cut trees up in large sections that can be moved with a tractor.  Depending on staffing levels at each facility, as well as the shear volume of debris encountered, a couple of our facilities had to delay opening into the late morning on Saturday because it was just too dangerous for golfers to be out there.  We appreciate your understanding after this major storm.

As has been said before, maintenance crews and superintendents are golfers, too!  We know how much you, the customer, want to be out on the course, but we have a duty to make sure it is safe for you to be out there.

Storm cleanup is still continuing at most of our properties, and could continue for weeks as we get back into more out of play areas and just playing catchup on debris cleanup after a week of OTHER PROBLEMS as well!  What problems?  Well...

• loss of power to our pump stations.  Even though we had rain with the storm, courses were very dry, and the strong rains ran off quickly, so how do we water with no pumps?

• Generators!  Finally by Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning, a few of our facilities were able to acquire hard-to-find generators to run our pumps.  It's no small feat to get these 480V 3-phase generators hooked up, but with the help of an electrician, and lugging around some 1" diameter electric cables to our pump houses, we were finally able to get some water back in the pipes and begin doing some much needed irrigating.
• spray rigs are used to lightly water hot spots on greens, tees, or fairways as needed, but since the typical sprayer only holds 300 gallons and could take 45 minutes to fill without our irrigation system available, and a full irrigation cycle on our courses at night could run easily 400,000 to sometimes 600,000 gallons under the driest conditions, you can see how a sprayer just doesn't suffice, and there is definite potential to see declining conditions.  Greens first.  We won't let those decline if it is in our power.
• loss of power to our maintenance facilities. 
• combine loss of pump with loss of central control for our irrigation systems, and we have really gone back about 40-50 years in time to full-on manual watering of courses, which is incredibly inefficient!
• Fortunately by Tuesday, most of our maintenance shops (not pump stations) had power except Northwest and Falls Road.  But during a power outage, equipment maintenance and repair is much more inefficient or sometimes can't happen at all because there is no power the lift, grinders, welders, etc.  Equipment repair & maintenance is a FULL TIME JOB, and situations like this slow down progress in a number of ways that oftentimes the golfers will never see!
• no power = no ice machines, so the simple task of filling water coolers just doubled or tripled in the amount of time necessary to do it since we have to go find ice somewhere, along with about 400,000 other folks without power!  In some cases, our clubhouses had power and could spare the ice.
• HEAT!!  Holy cow, did someone turn up the heater out there this week?  Loss of power combined with a record-setting heat wave that will tomorrow be 10 days over 95 degrees, certainly doesn't leave maintenance crews with much chance for relief.  In fact, I would say that if we were working at 85% - 90% productivity this past week, we'd be doing pretty well.  Maintenance crews are encouraged to take breaks, are trained in identifying signs of heat exhaustion, and are drinking MANY gallons of water every day to stay hydrated.
• Mowing - after the major cleanup was finished on fairways and tees, for example, there are still tons and tons of small sticks that have to be painstakingly hand-raked and picked up before these areas can be mowed.  Sticks even as small -as 1/2" in diameter can damage the precision mowing equipment we use, so even for the normal tasks like mowing, we are further delayed with these processes with a small labor staff who is trying to clean up the course and deal with the heat and other challenges we have.
• Communication - no power at shops meant two-way radio batteries quickly died, and while running equipment, cell phones sure aren't quite as efficient or easy to use while you are completely covered with sweat, dirty, and working our tails off running chainsaws, chippers, tractors, and other loud machines cleaning up!
• no power also means all those other things we take for granted that are "easy" - things like paying our bills, updating our golf course Facebook pages, and in general taking care of the business side of golf course maintenance, took much longer, or had to be done at home, assuming we had power.

 This list really does go on and on, but I'll stop here.  YOU GET THE IDEA!

One closing remark:  GOLF COURSE SUPERINTENDENTS AND THEIR TEAMS DEAL WITH A HOST OF DIFFERENT CHALLENGES EVERY DAY, RANGING FROM MICROSCOPIC ISSUES ABOVE AND BELOW GROUND (DISEASE PATHOGENS, SOIL CHEMISTRY, DRAINAGE, SOIL STRUCTURE, ANAEROBIC CONDITIONS, ETC.) , TO ANY OF THOUSANDS OF OBSTACLES (ENVIRONMENTAL, EQUIPMENT-RELATED, LOGISTICAL, VANDALISM, ANIMAL DAMAGE, ETC.) INCLUDING STORM DAMAGE.  So while this was a major catastrophic event for most of our properties, it is just another day in the life of a superintendent and his/her team.  We will continue to roll with the punches and see what's next!

Looks like finally some heat relief in sight next week!  Stay cool out there.

Why are they watering while I'm playing golf?

Throughout the year, but especially in the summer months, golfers are likely to encounter maintenance staff using hoses to hand water certain parts of the course, particularly greens and tees, but sometimes fairways, also.  Proper water management is one of the most important aspects of our jobs as superintendents, and as simple as it might sound, it is both challenging and time consuming to get the ideal moisture "dialed in" everywhere.  Too much or too little water in the soil can both result in rapid turf decline. 

Hand watering is primarily performed on greens for a few principal reasons:

• ·         To maintain healthy turf, water is only applied where needed.  Greens are the most sensitive areas of the course because the turf is maintained around 0.125”!  The grass is naturally under some stress simply due to the fact that it has less leaf tissue to photosynthesize light (photosynthesis converts sunlight to sugar, which is the plant’s food), and also a weaker root system (generally, the taller the grass, the deeper the roots will be to sustain it)

• ·         Within a single green, due to subsurface conditions, soil type, and/or surface topography, some areas hold water more than others.  Because of this, the entire green never needs the same amount of water at any given time.

• ·         We apply wetting agents regularly to help distribute water more evenly within the soil, and to help re-wet localized dry spots that have become hydrophobic, but even with the advances in technology that allow us to use water more efficiently, there will always be some differences in soil makeup and drainage characteristics of any given area.

• ·         IF WE DO NOT HAND WATER and we solely apply blanket irrigation with sprinkler heads to greens to address small dry spots, wet areas stay wet and become anaerobic, resulting in turf loss and poor playing conditions.

• ·         Our maintenance workers are golfers, too!  We ARE doing our best to stay out of your way, but we are typically touching up areas that have dried out during the warmest parts of the day when the course is full.  IF WE WAVE YOU ON TO THE GREEN TO TAKE YOUR SHOT, we are watching.  Please go ahead and hit and the 2 or 3 minutes that you take to approach the green will allow us to more quickly get off the green and out of your way.

• ·         There are some days when the combination of high heat, low humidity, and/or wind can cause many greens to begin wilting all within a brief period of time, so our water managers are rushing around trying to keep the grass alive AND stay out of your way.  It is a challenge, and our first priority is to minimize the interruption to your golf experience.  However there are going to be times where we need to get on and off the green very quickly when you are there if even just to quickly check soil moisture.  Again, we understand how an interruption can affect your game, and we do our very best to find the balance between keeping turf alive, and staying out of your way!  We take pride in the quality of our greens, and we would like to keep them that way with the least interruption possible.

• ·         One sprinkler head can cover as much as 25,000 square feet of area (over half an acre!), depending on the design of the irrigation system.  You can bet that within that much area, the needs of the grass and soil are going to be different.    

•        Sometimes you may see us turn on sprinkler heads in the middle of the day.  Generally speaking, the purpose of this is to cool wilting (or soon-to-be wilting) turf to help it maintain its turgidity so it can tolerate traffic until the next irrigation cycle that will more deeply wet the soil.  If you see heads running on a green in the middle of the day, it is because it is extremely dry and we can't get around fast enough with a hose.  A quick mist with the sprinklers will buy us a little time until we can water the soil more deeply.  

•        Our courses have computer- and radio-controlled irrigation systems, so we can turn on individual sprinkler heads or groups of heads as needed in the field when needed.  This is generally done for a brief period of time (3 or 6 minutes, which is about 1-2 rotations of the head.  We are doing our best to do this in a manner that has the least impact on your round!!

•         We are now using digital moisture meters that measure the volumetric content of water on the greens (and other areas of the course, too) at all MCG golf courses.  This technology is an incredible tool that will enable us to manage water resources even more wisely than we have been able to do in the past just using soil probes and getting a “feel” for the proper moisture.  Now we can determine, for example, the exact percentage of soil moisture when we see plants begin to wilt and better determine how soon that might happen.  We take moisture meters out on the course every morning to check water content, and can do more preventative watering on areas that are drier to save us some of the headaches of chasing wilt later in the day.  It is very interesting how one spot on a green as little as 6 inches away from another area can be substantially different in the amount of water it holds.  Monitoring this moisture in the morning gives us a good idea of how the greens will perform throughout the day, but because of the subtle differences throughout the green, it is not possible to check every square inch of them for water content, nor is it possible to know for sure how the wind/temperature/humidity will affect the turf that particular day (but it gives us much better idea), hence the need to hand water..

• ·         Maintaining healthy turf AND conserving water is a difficult balance; we continue to refine our practices to give you great playing conditions in an environmentally responsible manner!

I hope this helps you understand this small part of our job!