News

Good Morning,

 

It was nice to finally see some precipitation this past week. We received .15" of rainfall on Tuesday afternoon and another .8" on Thursday. It was nice to be able to shut the irrigation system down for a few days. We received 31.1" of rain, for the year, as of June 22. We received 3.3 additional inches of rain through July 6. From July 6 to October 29 we had 3.85" of rainfall. This past week rainfall brought our 2024 total to 39.2 inches. 

I submitted an application with the Iowa DNR to extend our irrigation permit into the months of November and December. Our irrigation permit allows us to irrigate a total of 121.5 acre feet of water, on the golf course, from April 1 thru the month of October. In order to continue irrigating a new permit has to be granted by the DNR. This permit was approved on Friday. 

 

Our irrigation total for the year was 101.71 acre feet of water. I never dreamt we would use that much irrigation water with all of the precipitation through the month of June. We also used 63.60 of the allotted 81 acre feet of water we are allowed to pump from our well. Heavy rainfall the first half of the year was followed by severe drought conditions which resulted in a lot of irrigation usage.

This past week our main focus was to continue working on irrigation repairs. We were able to repair quite a few lateral lines around the golf course. We also cleaned out diaphragms that were filled with debris from the flooded pumphouse. Several other repairs were completed. We are inching our way along and have covered the majority of the irrigation system.

 

These lateral lines "T" off the valves located on the main irrigation line. The lines are only under pressure when that station is running. It isn't always apparent there is an irrigation leak when the station runs for 15-20 minutes overnight. The more severe repairs result in water standing in the valve box saturating the area. 

 

This coming week we will finish the remainder of our irrigation repairs then start focusing on irrigation heads that have settled around the greens. The majority of the irrigation heads for our greens and green surrounds were topdressed this past week to help create a level surface. We still have some that settled quite a bit and they need to be raised and soil added under the head. We will complete this process by the end of the week.

I went through the golf course and documented the remaining tree stumps that need to be removed. We still have 19 tree stumps that will be removed on Tuesday. We will get some help from the Park Department to complete this project. Black soil and grass seed will be added after clean up is completed. Hopefully we will get a nice stand of grass in these areas when Spring arrives.

On Tuesday I met with the people from FEMA to tour the pumphouse and golf course so they could record damages. The most damage was done in the pumphouse with damage to all three irrigation pumps. The new pumphouse design will complete the mitigation process to meet the requirements of FEMA to rectify conditions so the same damage is not done if future flooding occurs.

 

The maintenance staff has completed mowing practices for the golf season. We will continue to operate our rough mowers to mulch leaves around the course, but other playing areas will no longer be mowed. This will help the grass grow and have more leaf tissue to go dormant and provide insulation for the crown of the plant heading into colder weather.

We have a four person best shot tournament scheduled for November 10. This event will be an 11:00 shotgun start. The current weather forecast is 55 degrees for next Sunday. Hopefully we can get a good turnout for our final golf event of the season.

 

The golf course is partnering with UDMO on November 21 to host a music bingo night. This will be a great fundraiser to help UDMO provide assistance to our community. Currently there are approximately ten table reservations remaining for this event. I expect this event to reach the maximum of 30 table reservations. It will be a lot of fun for everyone participating.

This concludes another week at The Muni. Please reach out with any questions or the need for further information on a topic. Enjoy the remainder of the weekend.