Susan Knox Wilson
Biologists were recently stunned to pull a 15” goldfish from Lake Tahoe. And it had company: aquarium fish dumped by their owners have been multiplying in the lake – and growing enormous. Their secret? Plenty of food and little competition and, unlike people, fish will keep growing as long as they live. The largest goldfish reported by Guinness World Records was a whopping 18.7 inches long.
We, too, have former aquarium goldfish (abandoned by previous owners) living in PebbleCreek lakes, but are they monsters? Jason Whitehill, PebbleCreek Director of Golf, says, “It’s possible!”
As a golf resort community, PebbleCreek boasts 24 handsome lakes on its current courses and will have three or four more when the additional nine-hole course is completed in Tuscany Falls. Golf course ponds mean different things to different people. The layout of the golf course and positioning of the water hazards are key components in creating an interesting and exciting golf experience — but these aquatic habitats also captivate the eye, attract wildlife and enhance the beauty of our community.
Like most golf courses, PebbleCreek has special lakes that serve as reservoirs for the irrigation system and their construction and positioning have special requirements. Water from the reservoir lakes is pumped to the other lakes and into the golf course irrigation systems, so they are always the largest lakes on the course and are the only lakes whose water level fluctuates. The amount of water used in the lakes also varies. In the summer, when evaporation rates are at their highest, we use almost twice as much as in the winter. This summer, for example, in Eagle’s Nest the lake in front of the clubhouse near hole No. 9, is topped off every night with some 800,000 gallons of water. In Tuscany Falls on the aptly named Falls Course, the lake and waterfall to the immediate right of the gated entry serves as the reservoir and also gets approximately 800,000 gallons pumped in every day. This reservoir provides water for the Palms Course as well. The Lakes Course reservoir (near tee No. 8) and the new reservoir already in place for the planned nine-hole course in the northwest corner of Tuscany Falls, use about 225,000 gallons every evening. The future course is currently maintained as a park.
Keeping PebbleCreek lakes healthy and beautiful is a full time job. The lakes in Eagle’s Nest and Tuscany Falls have an impressive combined surface area of 34 acres, all of which need to be kept free of algae and insects. Managing our waterways takes expertise, so each week a biologist visits PebbleCreek to test water quality and check for aquatic plant and algae growth or evidence of insect larva. With careful attention and maintenance we pro-actively prevent problems.
In addition to employing a biologist, we engage other experts to keep our lakes beautiful – fish! PebbleCreek lakes are stocked with specialty fish to help control plants and insects. Each fall a truck full of fish from a hatchery in Arkansas arrives with a load of white Amur (who eat algae), Israeli carp (who eat the larva of flies and mosquitoes) and tilapia (who eat water grasses). Whitehill isn’t sure how the egrets know when the hatchery truck arrives, but they do, and you can see them lined up around the reservoirs just as soon as the fish arrive. Ridding the lakes of wayward golf balls – and the occasional golf club – is done by a golf ball diver who, several times a year, dons a wetsuit and plumbs the depths for a chance to make money from other’s misfortune. The divers aren’t paid, but actually pay us for each ball they retrieve (and which they sell to others). Whitehill doesn’t know the exact number of balls that have been reclaimed over the years, but says on each trip the diver always leaves with potato sacks full.
Golf ball diving can be dangerous if you’re working on a course that has alligators or snakes. But here, in PebbleCreek, the biggest threat is probably a giant goldfish – and with PebbleCreek’s “no fishing allowed” policy, that goldfish will just keep growing and growing!