floating man made islands to fix a dirty river

Montana inventor says floating islands will clean pollution

By MIKE STARK | Associated Press

SHEPHERD, Mont. (AP) - Some good ideas start with a stinking dog.

Not long after Bruce Kania bought a farm out here, 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 phosphorous 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, manmade 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 onto some of the industrial gases that are warming the Earth.....

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