January 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 14

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

Fresh Filtered
How Ulysses, Kansas, got cleaner
water and better golf
By Elizabeth Beard

community

only 6,000 people,

the City of Ulysses sits
in the dry, f lat, southwestern corner of Kansas. With only about 16 inches of rainfall
each year, golf in Ulysses would be almost impossible without the use of recycled water. Until recently, this water was
provided by three sewer lagoons built in
the 1980s. However, the consistency of
the water supply became a ongoing problem for both the city's nine-hole Bentwood
Golf Course and for the city itself, with too
much water being discharged from the
lagoons in the winter and not enough water being available in the summer when
the course had to compete with local
farms for water.
" A lot of communities would have made
the choice just to dig a big pit to evaporate the water because it would have
been the least hassle, " says Jeff Kreie, former superintendent of golf and parks for
Ulysses. " But if this community wants to
survive and thrive, it just can't have the
basics. You need to dress yourself up a
little bit to attract people. "
Working with the Kansas Alliance
for Wetlands and Streams, the city developed a new wastewater system
that involved creating new wetlands,

Parks & Recreation J A N U A R Y

Non-golfers also have seen improved recreation, with the
restored lake now the centerpiece of 280-acre Frazier Park.

resurrecting an old, dry lake, and adding nine more holes to the golf course as
well as improving the parkland around
the lake. The $1.2 million water project
was largely funded by the city's sewer
fees and gas well income, along with a
small amount of grant money.
Kreie explains how the system works.
First, treated effluent from the sewer lagoons is pumped into six 200-by-200foot wetland cells, arranged in pairs.
Water enters the first pair of cells, is filtered by the plants and microorganisms,
and exits a little bit cleaner than when it
entered. The process is repeated in the
next pair of cells and then the final pair,
where by now the water is significantly
cleaner than when it left the treatment
plant. The water then travels through underground pipes to 5,000-feet of manmade stream channels with riffles to stir
the water, while the three-foot deep sand
streambed provides further filtering. The
stream ends in a three-acre equalization
marsh and from there the water travels
through more underground pipes into
the newly restored 18-acre lake. The golf
course pumps its irrigation water from
the far end of the lake. Kreie notes that
aside from the initial set of pumps from
the treatment plant to the wetland cells,
the water flow is entirely gravity-driven
and all of the town's wastewater now goes
through this system.

2 0 1 2 w w w . N R P A . O R G

As plans began to take shape to improve the water system, local golf advocates simulta neously seized the
opportunity to repeat their long-standing
calls for an 18-hole course.
" Golfers have been wanting to expand
the golf course for about 30 years, " Kreie
explains. " About the time this lake rehab project was going to go through, the
golfers had gotten a city council that was
probably willing to listen. They knew that
this project and the golf course expansion
really worked together even though they
were separate projects. "
The Ulysses Golf Board was tasked
with fundraising, successfully bringing
in $150,000 for the expansion. Although a
landscaping company provided the final
shaping for the tees and greens, qualified
volunteers provided labor to work the
city's earth-moving equipment to rough
in the course. Kreie says a core of five or
six people donated 13 successive weekends to the project, enabling the back
nine to be constructed for only $500,000.
In an interesting historical twist, the volunteer work effort echoed the time local
residents rallied together to construct the
front nine holes in the 1950s-then for a
cost of $800. The new back nine opened
in 2010.
Non-golfers also have seen improved
recreation, with the restored lake now
the centerpiece of 280-acre Frazier Park,

January 2012 - Parks & Recreation

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