Sponge

Sponge found in a sprinkler

Freshwater sponge is the newest resident at Pinehurst Country Club. I wish I was making this stuff up. This is not uncommon to the Rocky Mountain region but it is new to the club and we are just learning about management techniques this week.

We have noticed over the past few weeks, what looked like algae building up in sprinkler heads on the property. There are found in many of the small sprinkler heads around the club and even many of the golf sprinklers as well.

It was becoming such a problem, we needed to investigate further so we hired a diver to look into our well at the pump house. It was confirmed that we have freshwater sponge building inside the well.

Sponge is actually an animal. They colonize in submerged areas such as wells, filters, submerged tree roots, rocks and even pipelines in cool waters. They are attracted to areas with high water flow, because the sponge feeds on nutrients and bacteria in the water.

Sponge found in the pump house well

As we pump up to 3000 gallons per minute in the summer time, some of this sponge is sent through the irrigation system.  It collects on the filters of the sprinkler heads and severely impacts their efficacy. We are auditing, cleaning and resetting sprinklers on a daily basis.

This has been one of the causes of a number of wet and dry spots around the course. With the wet spring we did not get the opportunity to audit the system as a whole.

You will see the staff out checking a lot of irrigation over the next couple of weeks and certainly a lot of hose work for the dry and stressed areas.

Diver in the pump house well