FAQ's

What Can Be Filtered?

Plants are natural filters removing nutrients, metals, and even hydrocarbons from water. Selection of the correct plant species for the contaminant in question as well as the environment in question is critical to success. Some of the most common uses for our islands is regarding the removal of nutrients (example: Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus…) metals (example: Selenium) and hydrocarbons. We have completed multiple research programs using floating islands both in lab conditions as well on large scale mine projects and have documented the ability of dozens of species which we have in our internal database to support our client’s needs.

Use of Islands for Edible Plants?

Floating islands systems can be used for more than just cleaning water, these platforms can be used as planting beds for edible plants and gardens or for beautiful features in ponds. The only requirement regarding edible plants is addition of animal protection features to prevent wildlife from eating the beds.

How Long Does the Filtration Take?

Timelines are controlled by many factors. Environmental conditions, nutrient availability, plant species, length of the effective growing season and severity of the contamination all play a part in determining how long it takes for phyto-remediation to occur. Generally the better the growing conditions and the more aggressive the plant the faster uptake will occur.

Animal Protection Features

The floating island system can have additional features added to it such as coated grating over the top to prevent animals from eating plants down to the ground or digging up the root systems. Additionally other fencing systems can be attached to the hard frame to prevent ducks and geese from using the platforms for nesting. One final feature is that in some cases the growing medium can be kept in the water and so they do not even provide suitable nesting locations for most birds.

What Maintenance is Required?

Depending on the contaminant there may be maintenance required on an ongoing basis. Some basic forms of maintenance is biomass removal and disposal. This is very easy for nutrient loading as the biomass may not pose any environmental risks, but for some heavy metals proper disposal of the vegetation may be required.

Other Modifications Available

Our islands are built with flexibility in mind to allow us to adapt to any environmental conditions and needs of your project:

Wave Protection: we can add wave protection features to protect establishing plants
Nesting Platforms: we can add on nesting platforms or modify the islands to become nesting locations for wildlife
Modifications to the growing medium: we can modify the growing mediums in almost endless ways to improve texture, nutrient regimes and depth to promote growth of target species.