Best Management Practices for Maryland Golf Courses

Best Management Practices

• Brush or blow off with compressed air grass-covered equipment before washing. • Consider the use of a closed-loop washwater recycling system. • Equipment washing areas should drain to an oil/water separator before draining to a sanitary sewer or holding tank. • Avoid washing any equipment in the vicinity of wells or surface waterbodies. • Wash equipment over a concrete or asphalt pad that allows the water to be collected. After the residue dries on the pad, collect, compost, or spread on turf. • Minimize the amount of water used to clean equipment. This can be done by using spray nozzles that generate high-pressure streams of water at low volumes. • Use spring-operated shut-off nozzles. • Minimize the use of detergents and use only biodegradable non-phosphate detergents. • Use non-containment washwater for field irrigation. • Do not discharge non-contaminated wastewater during or immediately after a rainstorm, since the added flow may cause the permitted storage volume of the stormwater system to be exceeded. • Do not discharge washwater to surface water or groundwater either directly or indirectly through ditches, storm drains, or canals. • Never discharge to a sanitary sewer system without written permission from the utility. • Never discharge to a septic tank. • Do not wash equipment used to apply pesticides on pads with oil/water separators. • Do not wash equipment on a pesticide mixing and loading pad. This keeps grass clippings and other debris from becoming contaminated with pesticides. • Solvents and degreasers should be used over a collection basin or pad that collects all used material.

Figure 43. Equipment washing at Baltimore Country Club. Photo credit: Mark Jones.

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