Worldwide Pioneer in Environmental Education & Certification Honors Area Golf Course
Lake Monticello Golf Course
Audubon International is recognizing the Lake Monticello Golf Course for taking care of the wildlife that calls the wooded area around the course home. The golf course is managing the edges of its property to save water, fuel, and habitats.
It’s already been recognized once for it and now hopes for more. The Lake Monticello Golf Course is stepping up its environmental efforts for a reason.
“Taking care of the native areas and wildlife that occupy the green space and also make sure we’re not polluting the environment. Any way that we can reduce water usage, fuel consumption, anything we can do to be more responsible,” said Mark Marshall, Play Golf of America professional for Lake Monticello. “We’ve reduced our water usage by turning off the water in the native areas and making sure that the water we use to irrigate the golf course doesn’t go to any of the streams so it goes right onto the golf course that we’re taking care of.”
They are cutting the chemicals.
“We increased buffer zones around our water so we have 16 out of our 18 holes have some form of water on the golf course either ponds or streams so we grew buffer zones to filter out the nutrients so chemicals wouldn’t get into the water system,” said Marshall.
They are letting the grass grow high in some areas for a good reason.
“It’s a great habitat for all the animals and birds and stuff. We left stuff grow where butterflies and things like that will come in and it’s great for pollinators,” said Jim Prucnal, Lake Monticello Golf Course superintendent. “We’re just in the beginning stages of it so it will take us 1-3 years to get the complete certification so we have other steps we have to follow to do that.”
The Lake Monticello Golf Course also built 24 bluebird houses and has found 64 eggs around the grounds.
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