SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/32290
You might have rain gardens, butterfly gardens and healing gardens, which are a new concept for college grounds. These are excellent areas for signage of wildlife inventory. Trees hold nests of many types of bird species. Have a survey done from a professional nesting bird consultant. Show through signage how you are protecting sustainable grounds solutions. Some property might have bird and bat housing throughout their property. Inform the public through signage how certain types of birds and bats can eat several types of pest insects, providing a means of natural pest reduction. You do not need multiple signs; one sign can sum your en- tire environmental program in bullet point format. RECYCLING • Trash is the most common term that the general public as- sociates with recycling. Set company goals per year for a certain amount of recyclables tonnage for your complex and show your numbers to the public through signage and press releases. • Yard Waste: Inform the public if you compost and show through wording how many yards you generate and apply for your lawns at your complex per year to improve soil organics. • Storm Water: Inform the public if you have rain barrels in- stalled on your downspouts for your complex. Show through signage how your company eliminates the use of portable water for irrigation for herbaceous plant watering. • Food Waste: Vermin composting is becoming very popular to eliminate food waste and turn into organic soil amendment. Show through signage how many tons of food waste per year you recycle back into soil organics for your beds and lawns. Signage can be very expensive; however, it’s worth every penny for outreach and educational purposes, to tell the public about your company’s environmental stewardship. Keep all en- vironmental signage uniform in shape and color so people can associate it from a distance and identify it as a symbol for posi- tive environmental influence for your property. If a picture can be worth a thousand words, why not advertise it to speak to a million? When preparing your green space/sports turfgrass field, take a look around your parking lots, fields and shop areas to see how you can improve your storm water management and re- duce your carbon footprint. It’s a packaged deal; we just can’t do one or two things well. We should try to do as much as we can to the best of our abilities if time and cost allows. My good friend Jim Sluiter has been there for me since the start of my environmental journey, always offering great advice and encouragement. His dedication to protect wildlife sanctuar- ies and balance the aesthetics of turfgrass is a difficult combina- tion; however, once done, it can promote excellent recognition for your institution through a program that can work for you. ■ Kevin Mercer is superintendent of grounds at Saint Mary’s Col- lege of Maryland. www.stma.org SportsTurf 27