Right: A
staple for
Nantucket
fisherman;
lobster.
Below: A
functioning
wind farm off
the coast of
Great Britain.
stages, the developers wisely formed a
partnership with the sheriff’s meadow
foundation. Water quality and amount
of use are important issues on the vineyard, especially because the island’s sole
source of water is a single underground
aquifer. by forging this strategic pact,
the course won approval from the governing body and opened in may 2002.
the only stipulations were that the club
had to limit water use to 150,000 gallons
per day and use an all-organic turf-care
regimen—not exactly the ideal conditions for creating that emerald green
augusta look.
“i was a little nervous, to be honest
with you,” says course superintendent
jeff carlson. “no one had ever done this
without any pesticides.” He’s had to
deal with brown patches on the greens,
called dollar-spot disease, weeds, grubs,
and worst of all, a large skunk population, which loves to dine on the grubs.
as in the movie Caddyshack, in which
bill murray’s character tries to track
down and destroy a mischievous gopher, carlson has hired a local who zips
around the golf course at night wearing night vision goggles to trap skunks.
overall, however, the clientele, who pay a
hefty fee to become members, have been
happy with the links-style course.
“they don’t like the grub damage.
they don’t particularly care for the
weeds,” carlson says. “but, in general,
their attitude is fabulous.”
Island Warming
close by, in edgartown, mass., brian
nelson just installed a solar energy and
hot water system for the chic atria,
a popular restaurant with “one of the
most outstanding restaurant wine
lists in the world,” according to Wine
Spectator magazine.
until recently, nelson had been work-
ing with geothermal energy, but he notes
that digging a series of looped pipes 6 to
10 feet underground is almost impos-
sible on the vineyard’s rocky terrain.
as the co-owner of nelson mechanical
design, a firm that offers heat-delivery
systems for homes on the island, nelson
now guides his customers to a more af-
fordable air-to-air heat pump that works
in colder climates by taking the stored
solar energy in the air to heat a home.
“We’re always trying to steer our
clients toward the green options. each
year, they’re getting better and better,
with far more efficiency at less cost,”
says nelson. “green building here is very
robust, with a highly educated clientele.”
nelson’s goal, like many on the
island, is to make the vineyard all-electric, thereby eliminating the dependency on fossil fuels. He’s currently
working on a proposal to construct a
wind turbine that, combined with solar
energy and air-to-air pumps, will offset
the energy load of 21 farms. farming
has always been an essential part of
