We’ve covered a ton of angles to this topic already, from fixing broken water cycles on the land with keyline planning and earthworks, to marine ecosystem restoration through conservation and even farming. In today’s episode I got to speak with Bruce Kania of Floating Island International which developed their patented Biohaven floating island technology as a solution to algae-ridden and nutrient impared waterways since 2005. Since then they´ve launched over 9,000 island systems worldwide as solutions to a variety of problems facing contaminated water. 

In this interview Bruce breaks down the chemical and biological processes that happen in the water when there’s a heavy nutrient load and how it affects the balance of oxygen and the lifeforms that depend on it. He tells me how the floating islands that he’s helped to develop work to cycle the nutrients of polluted waterways back into the food web that then fosters the beneficial life forms that are emergent elements of healthy water ecosystems and that mature to help the whole system and surrounding ecology to thrive. 

We also take a look at the case study of Fish Fry Lake in Montana and how it’s gone from a polluted lake with regular algae blooms to become the most productive wild fishery in Montana where people can even swim and snorkel!

Be sure to stick around till the end of the interview as Bruce explains just how big the potential of these floating wetland systems is as he’s looking to develop inhabited floating islands that help to filter and clean the great plastic garbage patches in the Pacific ocean and the possibility of creating floating solar farms that function as new real estate as well. 

Resources:

Main Website https://www.floatingislandinternational.com/solutions/

Dos and don’t of waterway stewardship https://www.floatingislandinternational.com/the-dos-and-donts-of-waterway-stewardship/

Ted talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPIUUnoRPcY&feature=emb_logoInternship link  https://www.floatingislandinternational.com/internships-available/