Golf course hoping to ease water tensions

Kitchen Creek Golf Club is hoping to ease some of the pressure that has built up over water use for its new irrigation system at a public meeting tonight.
But some neighbouring residents, like Peter Spuzak, are worried there won’t be much water left for themselves after the course takes its fill.
Cecil Horne, a consultant for the golf course on this project, said initial applications were made to several ministries, including the Ministry of Environment, to take water from Kitchen Creek for use in the irrigation system.
“The intent of [tonight’s] meeting is to inform the people of the process to evaluate possible sources of water,” Horne said. “[It] will be a bit of history, options that we’re looking at, and try and get a total understanding of people’s concerns.”
“This is just a public information meeting and we’re just holding it so people can address any concerns they might have,” echoed Rick Payne, who chairs the greens committee at Kitchen Creek.
The meeting gets underway at 7 p.m. in the Crozier Hall.
Horne said the golf course finished installing its new irrigation system last summer, which gives it the capability to water the entire course instead of just the tees and greens.
“It’s going to take the course some time in order to work out just how much water they would require,” he noted. “There’s a maximum capability the system would utilize [500 gallons/minute] and that’s a rather large and scary number.
“It’s probably not going to be that.”
The obvious place to get water is from the creek, Horne said, but added everybody also knows the creek dries up periodically in the summer months.
“Actually, what we’re considering is a redesign of the pond structure,” he noted. “That would be for . . . capturing run-off from the course as well as peak run-off [from the creek in the spring.]”
Payne said the club also has drilled a couple of test wells to see if groundwater would be a viable alternative.
Water from those wells haven’t been used yet, Horne said, noting “thorough testing” will have to be done to see what impact using groundwater will have on existing wells.
< *c>One man’s worries
But Spuzak, whose farm is located near the southwest corner of the golf course, is saying there’s already been an impact on the water level in the area.
He said at least two of his neighbours lost their wells last summer after the golf course drilled theirs using “hydrofracting.”
“Hydrofracting to me is a scary thing,” Spuzak remarked. “If you don’t have a good well, you put pressure down the well–crack the rock and open it.
“If you hydrofract, you’ve cracked every vein that’s there,” he stressed, which he believes ended up cracking the vein to his neighbours’ wells.
“Just for recreation uses, that’s good potable water that supplies people life for drinking and consumption,” he added. “It seems frivolous to me to spread it around so you can hit a golf ball and hit a bit of turf.”
Spuzak also has several concerns with the golf course drawing water from Kitchen Creek, which he uses in the summer to water his cattle.
Last year, he was forced to water his cattle from his flowing well because the creek dried up. And he said it didn’t take long after that for his well to run dry, too.
“For quite a while after that, we had to haul water,” he noted. “Thanksgiving weekend we started getting consistent rain. We had a little water in the deeper holes in the creek.”
For the golf course to think it can take water from the creek other than when it’s overflowing in the spring is hard to believe, Spuzak said.
“There’s a petition taken up by the people in the area,” he added. “With the expanded usage, what is going to happen with their water?
“To me, if they want a water source, the best place to find that is Rainy Lake or Rainy River,” he argued.