Going ‘green’ is par for Cranberry course

in the Sustainable Communities Project.

Dave Barber, the golf course superintendent, and his assistant, Matt Krepp, took me to an aerated pond from which water is pumped to 1,500 irrigation heads around the course. All the water in the pond is effluent water sent via pipes from the Brush Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The pond is the equivalent of three acres, including depth. That water is minimally treated to be safe for release into streams and rivers, but its use on the golf course means tens of thousands of gallons of water per season is reused by the township.

“When the pond drops, we have an automated system that tells us how much we need” to have replenished, Mr. Barber said. “The only city [potable] water we use is in the clubhouse and if someone needs a shower.”

Stewardship at the golf course includes use of lowimpact fertilizers, native plants that require less maintenance and attract pollinators, and 60 acres of natural landscape that never needs to be mowed or sprayed.

“We compost all our leaves and grass so we never have to buy topsoil,” Mr. Barber said, adding that the course includes bird boxes.

Golfers, who pay $34 a pop to play 18 holes, might notice signage around the course and in the clubhouse explaining the course’s certification by Audubon International.

Audubon International is not associated with the National Audubon Society or any of its state or regional chapters. It grew out of the New York chapter in 1996 and became its own entity with an educational mission.

“We have taken conservation and sustainability to focus more on developed properties to educate people,” Audubon International’s Ms. Donadio said.

The organization started its certification of golf courses 25 years ago.

“The U.S. Golf Association recognized the need for sustainable property management, considering their watersheds and using the space to benefit wildlife habitats,” she said. “The certification is a six-step process, starting with an environmental plan, and we ask for documentation of core areas of management.”

Cranberry was certified in 2009 and has been recertified every two years, with documentation.

Inexplicably, some people ridicule environmental stewardship, as if they live in a different world, so it is heartening to talk to city, borough and township leaders who care about it. Cranberry’s entire township council is Republican, so it is clear that this issue, which has become so partisan on the national level, is completely non-partisan when you get local.

It will be on the local level that we continue to reap the benefits and value of wasting less and honoring the integrity of our air, land and water.