Bruce Kania: Preventing methane emissions by rehabilitating nutrient-impaired water

Methane that is generated in both fresh and marine water sediment is the single largest source of this powerful greenhouse gas (Rosentreter et al. 2021).  Historically, deoxygenation of water has contributed to mass extinctions, especially the Permian Extinction (Mays et al. 2022). Bruce’s talk will explain the connection between nutrient pollution, algae blooms and the alarming increase of biogenic methane in the atmosphere - methane that is produced as a result of human activity, separate from oil and gas. He will describe how his own work on water quality solutions could, if adopted on a large enough scale, significantly mitigate these emissions. He will also highlight recent government initiatives that are paving the way for commercialization of water quality technologies that could both decrease methane emissions and prevent massive species extinction in our lifetime.

Bio

Bruce Kania is CEO of Floating Island International, a Montana company noted for commercializing biomimetic systems to enhance water stewardship. Bruce has been a Montana entrepreneur since the mid-seventies and has taken more than twenty products from concept to marketplace. In 1990 he established Fountainhead, LLC, a privately owned invention company, which has successfully licensed and commercialized concepts in the fields of prosthetics, sporting goods and, most recently, the BioHaven® family of floating treatment wetland systems.

As head of Floating Island International, Kania heads up a dedicated team centered around deploying floating islands to clean water and improve habitat in waterbodies as diverse as private fishing ponds, stormwater impoundments and coastal waters. Today there are over ten thousand BioHaven floating islands in both freshwater and marine settings in North America and Alaska, Europe, Australasia, Singapore, Central America and China.

Having recently learned that methane emissions from nutrient—impaired freshwater are a major contributor to global climate change, Bruce has turned his full attention to commercializing the measurement and mitigation of biogenic methane on a scale large enough to make an impact. He will chair an important session entitled Biogenic Methane Monitoring and Mitigation at this year’s National Water Quality Monitoring Conference in April.