FieldScience
well as the walks and turf run-off, and potentially from the roofs of nearby museums. We will use captured recycled water to irrigate as often as possible rather than city potable water, and will keep water on site rather than dumping it into the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.
The water collection system cisterns will save rain water from the trench drains as
Another design component being implemented is the restoration of the Granite curbs that are installed along edges of the lawn panels. These contribute in several ways to the overall goals. They will define the drive-no drive areas; give a finished maintain- able edge to the grass; respect the original street curbs that pre-dated the pedestrian paths; allow handicap access since they are so flat; and provide water collection points (trench drains). The National Park Service will also make changes to the turf management program.
They are hiring a turf manager with extensive experience in managing major events on high traffic natural turf areas similar to our sports fields and will also be developing a turf team. The turf management program will integrate with a new event management program. They will modify the event management program to improve the protection of the turf to the greatest extent possible by implementing rest periods into every per- mit so that a new event is not set up until after the rest period of the last event. This is a major undertaking that will take several years to complete all but you had
to start somewhere and come spring 2013, the National Mall will have 400,000 square feet of green grass managed by sports turf professionals that understand what high traf- fic turf needs to survive. ■
Murray Cook is president of Sportsturf Services, a division of The Brickman Group, Columbia, MD, and a past president of the Sports Turf Managers Association.
16 SportsTurf | July 2012
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