Aim for the Green

Heritage Club, a private club with a golf course in Mason, recognizes that, for organizations whose future relies on a healthy planet and beautiful scenery, going green is more of an obligation than an option. 

Heritage Club’s 18-hole course that sprawls across acres of green grass and tree-lined paths relies on large amounts of water to remain healthy and attractive. In addition, the clubhouse is used by members for everything from dining and weddings to business meetings. Because of the large scope of operations at Heritage Club, the organization has begun to reduce the club’s impact on the environment and move towards an ideal self-sustainability model. 

"The push to go green originally came from our members and their desire for sustainability," says Lewis Rosenbloom, general manager and COO of Heritage Club. "We also want to simply be good stewards and shrink our carbon footprint as much as possible." 

In that spirit, the club has placed recycling bins throughout the course to encourage members to recycle rather than simply toss items such as cups and food containers in the trash. 

"Everything is paperless now, too," says Michelle Tegge, director of membership and marketing for Heritage Club. "We’re also moving to eliminate Styrofoam in favor of more eco-friendly containers, and we’ve installed motion detectors on many of our lights in

the clubhouse." 

Heritage Club’s outdoor cooking options are also entirely eco-friendly, utilizing grills that use all-natural wood charcoal as opposed to chemically-treated charcoal or propane. 

Perhaps one of the largest ways Heritage Club is working to lower its environmental impact is reflected in the source of all the greenery: water usage. Eighty percent of the water used comes from treated effluent water piped into a large retention lake on the golf course, leaving only 20 percent to be supplied by the city. 

"The lake, which is an irrigation lake, serves as a holding bin for the water we use to irrigate the course," says Rosenbloom. 

The club is working to build a new pond, which will serve the dual purpose as both a water hazard for the course and a new collection and filtration system for clean and usable water. Rosenbloom says he hopes this new pond will eliminate the club’s reliance on any city water whatsoever. 

"We’re hoping it will help us use less of the effluent water, too," he says. "It will supplement the effluent water with water that runs off the golf course and into the creeks. The new retention pond will be filtered naturally, with no chemicals, and we can pump it into our irrigation late in order to use less of the effluent water." 

The effluent water, though better than using harshly treated city water, is not the best long-term water source for the golf course. It still contains filtration chemicals when it’s used to irrigate the course, while the new pond will use a natural filtration system by cleansing the water through the ground itself. Heritage Club plans to begin constructing the new pond and irrigations system in the fall and it should be fully functional in time for next year’s golf season. 

Heritage Club is located at 6690 Heritage Club Drive, Mason, OH 45040. You can reach them at 513.459.7711, by email at heritage@heritageclub.com, or visit their website at www.heritageclub.com.