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About BioHavens: Introduction |
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What is a BioHaven floating island?
 A BioHaven floating island is an advanced form of Floating Treatment Wetland which "bio-mimics" natural floating wetland systems invented by Nature. Vegetated with native plants (preferably perennials), it is a beautiful, natural and sustainable eco-system which provides many benefits, from habitat restoration to water cleansing.
There are many products in the BioHaven range: BioHaven® floating islands, Leviathan®, BioHaven Living Walkways™, Shadow Islands™ and Elevated Bio Swales™.
BioHavens® are protected by 4 US patents, 5 New Zealand patents, one China patent, one Macao patent, and many patents pending. For further details, contact our office.
 BioHaven floating islands are a significant new advance in constructed wetland technology, or treatment wetlands.
Wetlands are Nature's way to cleanse water. Simply put, they offer surface area and circulation: surface area for the growth of microbes, which are responsible for converting nutrients and other pollutants into biofilm, which then moves through the aquatic food web; circulation for getting the water in contact with these microbes. BioHaven wetlands provide an augmented surface area, which we call a "Concentrated Wetland Effect".
 BioHaven floating islands are buoyant mats, planted like a garden and launched onto a waterway. They are made from a matrix of fibers which look like a pot-scrub or loofah. The matrix is water filtration material made from 100% recycled plastic, from drink bottles, which use the most inert plastic available. Layers of matrix are bonded together with foam, which also provides buoyancy.
They can be made in virtually any shape or size. Large islands and Living Walkways are constructed using a modular system, reinforced for extra buoyancy, yet flexible enough to move with the water.
 Floating islands can be launched into any waterway, be it pond, lake, stream, effluent pond, lagoon, embayment - any waterway will benefit from a floating island, even the ocean.
They are usually anchored or tethered in place, though they can be left to float around freely.
LEVIATHAN® is the culmination of BioHaven technology as we know it today. It is a "machine" that puts upwards of 2500 sq ft of BioHaven together with high-volume aerators, which can be configured to process thousands of gallons of water a minute. The surface incorporates "runways" which carry water that's been drawn up from de-oxygenated (or dead) areas of the lake, allowing it to soak up oxygen and be processed by microbial activity, before being returned to the water body. The net affect on the lake is higher concentrations of dissolved oxygen throughout, de-stratification and homogenization of temperature, as well as treatment of common pollutants such as nitrates, phosphates and ammonia. Bringing dead zones back to life is the Leviathan's purpose, and we have demonstrated its abilities at the Shepherd Research Center where we have turned around our 6 acre pond, from being incapable of supporting trout to one that now sustains a healthy population of Yellowstone Cutthroat.
For photos please see the Gallery Water Quality section (Rehberg) and the Shepherd Section.
 BioHavens were inspired by Nature, in particular, by the floating peat bogs of Northern Wisconsin, which are associated with clean water and great fishing. Using Nature to cleanse Nature is a form of Biomimetics.
When you walk on a land-based wetland you expect to get wet feet; it's the same on a floating island. They support plant life and an appropriate numbers of waterfowl, but if you want to sustain human activity you need our alternative, the Living Walkway.
 BioHaven Living Walkways are designed to be weight-bearing and so support all kinds of fun activities, from picnics to fishing, to calm contemplation of nature... and a host of other activities in between. They can be made super-buoyant and water-impervious, and could even support an army tank if designed for it! And because it is basically a wetland with added rigidity, it comes with the same aesthetic and water-quality benefits you get with a BioHaven floating island.
 BioHavens do five things:
1. They remove pollutants from a waterway, including nitrates, phosphates, ammonia and heavy metals
2. They provide critical riparian edge habitat - in fact, new land mass for use by all kinds of creatures, from microbes to humans
3. They sequester carbon and other greenhouse gases
4. They provide wave mitigation and erosion control
5. They beautify a waterscape
BioHavens are planted with sod, garden plants or wetland plants and launched onto a water body.
 There the plants are allowed to grow naturally, and, as they develop, their roots grow through the matrix and into the water below. Over time, a natural eco-system evolves. The model for this is Nature herself - BioHavens "bio-mimic" Nature. We are part of a new branch of science, Biomimicry, or Biomimetics.
BioHavens, and the plants that grow through them, provide surface area for microbes to thrive. Microbes remove pollutants of all kinds, from the nutrients caused by fertilizer run-off and organic waste, to pharmaceuticals such as estrogen, to heavy metals, such as copper and zinc.
 BioHavens are a Concentrated Floating Wetland - the huge surface area of fibers provides many times more surface area than an equivalent stretch of bare wetland. Surface area is the key factor for microbial activity to take place, and microbes (bacteria) are the key to removing contaminants from the water. Plants and their roots are also important, but more for the extra surface area the roots provide than for any nutrient uptake the plants themselves account for.
BioHavens were invented eight years ago, have been successfully trialed for five years and have been on the market since July 2005. They represent a natural, convenient and cost-effective solution for some of the most intractable and expensive problems on the planet:
Polishing wastewater and storm water, ie removing the last percentage of nutrients which are notoriously difficult to get rid of by any other means.
Sequestering carbon dioxide and methane from effluent ponds to reduce global warming
Wave mitigation and protection of levees in the event of severe storms
Extraction of salt
Mining nutrient loads from any waterway and reducing algal blooms
Restoring wetlands without the need for new land
Restoring habitat for endangered species such as the trumpeter swan.
They can be made in any shape and size and offer some fun uses to balance the more serious side:
Creating walkways, piers, docks, jetties
Supporting recreational uses, such as picnic tables, floating stages, gazebos?.
Floating vegetable gardens which never need watering!
Restoring a natural look and balance to any waterway of any size
New land mass for human habitation.
Not only are they natural, aesthetic and functional, they are cost-effective, "green" and virtually maintenance free.
FII is in the process of licensing this technology around the world to suitably qualified partners. To learn more about BioHaven floating islands, call us at our toll-free number 1-800-450-1088, or visit us at:
Floating Island International, LLC
10052 Floating Island Way
Shepherd, MT 59079
The PROMISE OF FLOATING ISLANDS
As an inventor I can attest to the fact that one of the very best designers of models from which invention can be inspired is nature. Many natural systems have been in place and working almost seamlessly for millennia. Systems like photosynthesis have been evolving, slowly changing, becoming better and better as billions of diverse experiments testing methods of solar-powered growth continue to happen all around us every day. Almost every life form in existence on this planet represents such an experiment. Evolution screens the test results, and we name it natural selection, or survival of the fittest. And nature is a master at blending systems. If there is such a thing as a simple natural ecosystem, it must happen somewhere other than on this planet! Chemical reactions, symbiotic vector relationships, synchronized, almost collaborative life strategies, and above all, competition with and between literally thousands of life forms, all of these are likely to occur in any ecosystem on planet earth.
However, when the level of diversity and complexity reduces, for whatever reason, dramatic change can occur! Human actions are often blamed for reducing biodiversity, and accordingly some argue that we humans are to blame for changes occurring within our ecosystem…and changes like increased level of pollution in our atmosphere and waterways, increased level of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, high levels of toxic elements in some of our food, these changes and many others do seem directly attributable to human actions. And yet nature, in its own, quiet way, via countless natural systems, moderates some of our impact. Along the way nature provides us with models that do this, and one of these models are natural, wild, floating islands.
Wetlands are a remarkably effective way to clean water. Counter-intuitively, the richest of ecosystems offer water that is most lacking in nutrients. Pure water will not have fertilizer or herbicide or pesticide residue in it. While it may have minerals in it, these will be in trace amount volumes. A healthy waterway is one in which many life forms compete for just a few nutrients. This same scenario repeats itself throughout nature. Incredibly diverse tropical rainforests for example, are almost starved of free nitrogen, most of which is tied up, sequestered, in the huge variety of life forms occurring within. Wetlands function like screens that pull some nutrients from water as it filters through. Floating islands function like a screen within a screen. Floating islands themselves and roots suspended from these floating screens, tap nutrients directly from water as it passes. A floating wetland can function like a rainforest, with nutrients being sequestered in huge varieties of life forms all of which combine to make up the diverse environment we associate with wilderness.
Conserving wetlands, and especially the particularly effective floating island embodiment of a wetland, is absolutely fundamental. However, restoring such natural designs, or even creating new ones where they have not occurred in the past to correspond with increased human activity, is a particularly strategic method to supplement mechanical water treatment facilities.
The technology exists today to launch naturalized floating islands, and to incorporate floating islands into other structures associated with waterways, including bridges, docks, jetties, levees, even golf greens.
Our work over the course of the last five years has made many applications for floating islands apparent. Several of these applications are vast in their potential scale.
Following are several of the various markets in which floating island technology will prove beneficial:
1. Erosion control…wave, wind, and runoff.
2. Storm water management waterways.
3. Water Feature Market…corporate ponds and waterways.
4. Ornamental garden market…Koi ponds.
5. Water dog field trial and training platforms.
6. Wetland restoration…especially strategic relative to steep watersheds and riparian edge habitat expansion.
7. Aquaculture…for water temperature control as well as additional fish food source associated with plant roots.
8. Wild fish security applications…security for spawning trout.
9. Parks, zoos, arboretums.
10. Plant nurseries.
11. Conservation citizen groups.
12. Municipalities.
13. States, and other civic entities, including the federal government here in the United States.
14. Wildlife restoration…especially improved security for nesting and brooding waterfowl, including loons.
15. Post and Pre water treatment facilities.
16. Mine effluent settling ponds…another stewardship tool.
17. Feedlot, dairy and swine effluent ponds.
18. Green floating docks, piers, jetties, levees and bridges.
19. Chemical mediation…napthanic acid, Ft. McMurray, Canada.
20. Carbon sequestration…farming of oceanic and freshwater dead zones.
21. Army Corp. of Engineers
22. Floating islands as human habitation, wind energy generation, agriculture.
23. Aquarium scale floating islands…wintertime herbs and lettuce.
24. Floating golf greens.
25. Floating islands as amenities to floating commercial buildings…Vancouver.
26. Floating Islands as lifestyle enhancement for various deep water structures on the ocean.
27. Foam and plastics recycling opportunity.
28. Fish Spawning Platforms
29. Pilot Projects
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