Montana inventor floats unique idea
SHEPHERD, Mont. — Some good ideas start with a stinking dog.
Not long after Bruce Kania bought his Montana farm, he noticed a foul odor from his dogs that swam in the ponds and streams on the property.
His place is at the end of a 60-mile irrigation ditch, which is rich with nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer that has run off into the ditch and worked its way downstream.
Too much of those nutrients can mean too much algae, which can hamper the life of other tiny species, which in turn, reduces the prospects for insects, birds and fish.
Bad as it was, it got Kania thinking. Wasn’t there some way to get those excess nutrients out of the water?
Five years later, Kania is perfecting his solution and selling it on the world market: floating, man-made islands, teeming with life and possibilities.
The islands, acting as a sort of floating filter, are designed to improve water quality with plants that suck up excess nutrients. They also create wildlife habitat, function as small-scale wetlands and add a little visual spice to waterways.
Kania doesn’t lack ambition when it comes to the islands. He believes they could sop up pollution and toxic spills, produce more land for farming or wildlife, and even hold on to some of the industrial gases that are warming the Earth.
“I see a lot of potential,” Kania said during a recent tour of a pond on his farm, where there are about two dozen islands.
His company, Floating Island International, started selling the islands last July. So far, the company has shipped about 1,100. Customers range as far as New Zealand and Europe, Kania said.
Prices start at around $29 per square foot. The islands are made differently because they’re meant to be versatile and functional nearly anywhere on the planet where there’s water.
Kania, whose company employs six people, has identified 26 possible markets for the islands — from livestock waste ponds to golf courses to bird habitats — and expects that number to double soon.
About 10 years ago Kania, a below-knee amputee, invented a fabric-covered gel liner to cushion the tension between a limb and a prosthetic device. The success of that invention is helping fund research for the islands, which for Kania, a wildlife and plant enthusiast, are a passion beyond business.
“It’s so close to my heart,” he said.
The idea of the synthetic islands is relatively simple.
The core of each island is a cushiony polymer batting, made from recycled material, that’s stacked in layers that are buoyant and can be shaped and customized. Plants are then inserted into pre-cut pockets.
The layers allow the plants’ roots to reach the water. As the plants grow and tiny microbes begin clinging to the island, they take excess nutrients out of the water. The plants convert them into stems, leaves and other plant parts.
Sucking out the contaminants helps restore the biodiversity of the waterways, Kania said.
Meanwhile, the islands offer shade, protection and food for fish and great spots for birds, he said.
The islands are intended to mimic what nature has perfected.
Kania remembers the peat bogs and the islands where he grew up, in Wisconsin, stirring with life among the conifers.
Those islands came to mind when he started thinking about building man-made versions.
“I started by wondering if there wasn’t some natural phenomenon that could be borrowed and applied,” he said.
Before the process got too far, Kania started gathering experts to talk about what might work and what won’t.
One of those people was Frank Stewart, a civil engineer in Bozeman who specializes in hydrology. He saw the potential of the islands early on.
Aside from looking nice and providing habitats for wildlife, the islands could play an important role in cleaning up polluted places. As an example, Stewart mentioned livestock waste at industrial-scale cattle feedlots.
Regulators have been cracking down on operators to do a better job treating the effluent. Operators could build an expensive wastewater treatment plant or create an artificial wetland - both of which are expensive and need specific conditions to be successful, Stewart said.
A floating island could be cheaper, more versatile and easier to maintain, he said.
The same principle could be applied in other places where contaminants need to be cleaned up. That potential is drawing interest.
“The guys buying them aren’t artsy-fartsy architects,” Stewart said. “They’re engineers. They have a problem they need to have solved.”
Researchers are still discovering what the islands will be capable of doing.
Russell Smith, who has worked on the islands through his Livingston-based company, OASIS International, an environmental consulting company, agreed that once the islands are tested and refined, they could have widespread uses.
“It’s pretty crazy all the applications this thing could be used in,” Smith said. “This could be fairly revolutionary.”
The Montana Board of Research and Commercialization has given the projected a $300,000, two-year grant to study the potential for removing excess nutrients.
The company is hoping to hear this summer whether it will get an $800,000 federal grant for more studies.
“The biggest hurdle we have is to prove they work, and we’re working on that,” Stewart said.
A tour of Kania’s farm offers a glimpse of the islands’ potential, albeit on a small scale.
He has two dozen islands floating in one of his ponds, each with a different look and size.
The largest — more of a floating pier, because it connects with the shore — stretches nearly across the pond. Down the middle is a black, cobblestone-like walkway that’s made of recycled pop bottles. On either side, he’s planted tomatoes, brussels sprouts and other vegetables.
Other islands are growing robust patches of reeds, grasses, sedges and flowers.
The islands, once deployed, are designed to be maintenance-free. They can be anchored or a series can be strung together to create an archipelago. Not long ago, 22 people crammed on to a 250-square-foot island and stayed afloat.