Eagle Valley & Prestwick Golf Courses (CSAH 19)

Location: Woodbury, Minnesota | Client: South Washington Watershed District | Design team: HR Green| Features: Water Reuse, Stormwater Treatment, Construction Administration

Overview

In 2013, Washington County widened Woodbury Drive, also known as County Road 19, from Valley Creek Road to Bailey Road. When planners decided how to manage over 77 acres of rain and snow runoff, they came up with a fiscally and environmentally smart approach – stormwater reuse.

Water in Motion worked with the city of Woodbury and the South Washington Watershed District to implement a landmark stormwater collection and reuse system as part of the roadway improvement. Eagle Valley and Prestwick golf courses adjoin Woodbury Drive in the area of work. Together, the two courses irrigate over 100 acres annually over a seven-month season.  Water in Motion redesigned existing stormwater ponds at Eagle Valley and Prestwick golf courses so that irrigation systems could reuse runoff from the road. Instead of pumping water from wells as their primary sources of irrigation water, the two courses receive nutrient-rich stormwater for irrigation, eliminating millions of gallons of excess water and unwanted nutrients from flowing into Colby and Bailey Lakes. The project also included installation of a babbling brook amenity at Eagle Valley that circulates, aerates and preconditions stormwater.

Benefits include:

  • Reduced loading of the local watershed
  • Beneficial use of nutrient-rich stormwater
  • Reduced use of potable well water for irrigation and reduced stress on the local aquifer
  • Healthier Bailey and Colby lakes, helping to preserve the appeal of living in Woodbury

 

Water planners agree there’s great potential to reuse stormwater runoff. A 2011 Metropolitan Council Report said about 70 percent of the precipitation in the Twin Cities becomes runoff when it falls on rooftops, parking lots and streets. Most of it ends up in our lakes and rivers. Prestwick Golf Club Superintendent Dave Kazmierczak predicts the reuse system could enable him to cut his groundwater use by a quarter or even a third. In the past decade, Prestwick used an average of about 40 million gallons a year, according to the DNR. 

Details

Eagle Valley Golf Course

The goal on this site was to reuse stormwater collected in the pond along east and west Woodbury Drive (CSAH19) for Eagle Valley Golf landscape irrigation and as a babbling brook circulation amenity. Water level controls trigger the transfer of water from the stormwater pond to the irrigation holding pond. From there it is distributed onto the Eagle Valley Golf course via a preexisting irrigation pump station and irrigation system. When the level of the irrigation holding pond is above a predetermined threshold, the transfer pump station circulates stormwater through a babbling brook amenity that leads back to the stormwater pond.

Prestwick Golf Course

The goal of the work on this site was to use stormwater collected in the two stormwater ponds located near the challenge-hole 13 green and the tee box of challenge-hole 14 of Prestwick Golf Club for use by the Prestwick landscape irrigation system. The two ponds were combined to accept greater quantities of stormwater and to accommodate installation of a flume and wet well for the new stormwater irrigation pump station. 

The stormwater irrigation pump station operates on demand based on scheduling of the landscape irrigation system by the Club Superintendent.  Challenge-holes 13 through 18, the driving range and the clubhouse areas receive irrigation water from the stormwater irrigation pump station. An automatic control in the wet well shuts down the stormwater irrigation pump station when the stormwater pond level is drawn down to a predetermined level and the preexisting landscape irrigation pump station uses groundwater for irrigation.