It's that time of year. Unless you're in a tropical spot, you probably aren't growing any turf right now. That gives many superintendents some time to take a deep breath and get ready for next year, enjoy the holidays, watch football, and maybe do some hunting. But this is also the best time of year to dedicate to some quiet office time as well. That means it's a great time to move forward with your facility BMP!

The facility BMP isn't all that hard to complete. Heck, the state has already done the majority of the work when all 50 states published BMP manuals a year ago. All you really need to do is to download the state BMP document and make it your own.

That sounds easy but there's time involved to take out anything in the state manual that doesn't pertain to your property, keep the text that does apply to your property and highlight any environmental, wildlife, conservation, community outreach or other programs that your facility takes part in. The base BMP document has 12 sections in it and within each section there are sub-sections as well. Just tackle one section at a time and move it to the completed section. Then next week take on another chapter until all the sections are done. This is the most sensible way to build your manual, one brick at a time. 

You may find it a bit daunting at first, but once you get a feel for using the BMP tool you will get faster at putting the chapters together. There are several self help documents just below the button to get started on your facility BMP. Feel free to reach out for help from any of the field staff members or Mark Johnson and Emily Fuger at GCSAA. We are all happy to help and we've had our hands all over the BMP tool over the past few years.

This is a very important program to move forward and I hope that all of our members can get their facility manual done in the next few months. The hardest part is getting started, and this is for most of us, the best time of the year to get it done. So don't hesitate, push the red button and get started!