Golf Courses Contributing To Nitrogen Reduction Efforts

BREWSTER – The Captains Golf Course is one of the town’s most prized recreational assets. What’s less known is the role its management is playing in helping the town curb the amount of nitrogen entering its waterways.

 Efforts to reduce the amount of fertilizer used to treat the two public courses on Freemans Way are helping the town meet the nitrogen reduction targets outlined in its integrated water management plan. 

 In his presentation of the recently updated plan to the select board July 27, Mark Nelson of the Horsley Whitten Group said that the town is required by the state Department of Environmental Protection to remove 2,040 kilograms of nitrogen a year from the Pleasant Bay watershed. The 2026 update falls just short of that target at 1,983 kilograms annually. But of that figure, 1,565 kilograms are removed at the Captains.

 “Mostly because they’re not putting as much fertilizer down as they used to,” Nelson said.

 Fertilizers are among the leading causes of nitrogen loading in Cape waterways alongside septic systems and stormwater runoff.  According to Nelson, staff at the golf course have been more deliberate in their use of fertilizer to manage the Port and Starboard courses. That includes using GPS technology to help identify specific areas in need of fertilizer application.

 Jay Packett, director of operations for Captains, said three GPS sprayers are utilized to directly apply fertilizer as well as fungicides, herbicides and pesticides where needed.

 “They’re so dialed in, they can literally hit the spots within a quarter of an inch,” he said when reached by phone last week. “So you’ll be able to hit exactly what you’re looking to hit, but you’re not wasting chemicals in the longer grass and the areas that don’t need it.”

 Packett said staff at the course have also reduced the number of granular fertilizer applications from twice a year to just once a year in the fall, save for an additional spring application every three years. Staff have also expanded bunkers in the course fairways to reduce the amount of greenspace that requires fertilizer application.

 “When you do that over the course of 26 holes, that’s a pretty good amount of land,” he said.

 Caroline McCarley of the select board asked about how the Ocean Edge Resort employs fertilizer on its course. Nelson said that course was not analyzed given that it is outside of the watershed area. But Town Manager Peter Lombardi said that the management of the Cape Cod National Golf Course, about half of which is located in Brewster, has also rethought how it uses fertilizer in recent years.

 “It is a net positive to the entire watershed what they’re doing now versus what they were doing five or 10 years ago in terms of fertilization,” Lombardi said.

 Nelson said Brewster cannot meet its annual nitrogen reduction target strictly through existing wastewater treatment efforts. Because of that, the state requires that the town prepare an alternate plan to assist the town in meeting that goal. However, Nelson said that DEP has expressed a willingness to consider further treatment efforts on the National and Captains golf courses to help meet the figure. 

 The bar for nitrogen removal is much lower in the Herring River watershed, Nelson noted. The updated integrated plan calls for the annual removal of 136 kilograms of nitrogen a year in Brewster. Nelson said the plan achieves an annual reduction of 87 kilograms through sewering, restrictions imposed through the town’s fertilizer bylaw, the use of innovative-alternative septic systems and the closure of Warners Bog for restoration. 

 But plans by the Brewster Conservation trust to purchase the Thacher Bog complex could help the town remove an additional 88 kilograms of nitrogen a year from the watershed. Alternatively, an additional 44 homes in the area of Elbow Pond could be brought onto town sewer, but Nelson said he doesn’t expect that will be necessary.

 Brewster does not have any additional requirements for nitrogen removal in the Cape Cod Bay watershed in the updated plan. Nelson said that’s because of tidal activity in the watershed.

 “Tides come and go quite a bit,” he said. “There’s a lot of circulation of water, so if there is nitrogen getting into that bay, it’s out into Massachusetts Bay and the Atlantic Ocean much more frequently than if you were in the Herring River or Pleasant Bay.”

 Meanwhile, Nelson reported that the quality of the town’s drinking water is in “excellent” shape. He said nitrogen levels in wells in the Punkhorn and on Freemans Way registered less than 1 milligram per liter, well beneath the 10 milligrams per liter standard for acceptable drinking water.

 Mary Chaffee of the select board called the updated integrated plan “a huge step forward” for Brewster as it continues to plan ahead in its water protection efforts.

 “It’s essential that we take action and take the right actions,” she said. “So this is a really big deal that we now have a new plan to build on the original plan from 2013.”

 Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com