URBANI FISHERIES, LLC
  • Home
  • Approach
  • Process
    • Pond, Lake, & Wetland Methodologies
    • Stream & River Methodologies
  • Other Service Areas
  • Results
  • Our Team
  • Store
  • Contact
  • Fieldnotes

Floating Islands


ABOUT
Floating Islands offer a natural and economical solution to improve water quality, maximize habitat, and reduce bank erosion. They add great beauty and diversity to a waterscape, attracting more wildlife and providing a greater range of niches within the system. An increase in population and diversity will increase to uptake of excessive levels of nutrients and pollutants that cause unwanted problems


Floating Islands , a type of wetland, provide a “green” approach to water system maintenance and eliminate the need for chemicals that damage the natural order of an aquatic ecosystem. They also provide fantastic habitat for fish, offering shade and habitat for juvenile fish.

Floating Islands 
are ready to withstand the elements and can tolerate thick ice, with no need to remove for the winter. They can be used in a range of watercourses ranging from small ornamental ponds or streams to ponds that cover several acres. Our floating islands range from 2ft to 15ft in diameter and use natural shapes to better mimic natural systems.

​BIODOCKS

Biodocks are a variation of floating island technology incorporates a boardwalk on top of floating islands.
​They are engineered to support a range of human activities including fishing access, gardens, gazeboes, picnic tables, and boat docks. They provide the advantages of any conventional dock, with the added benefits of water quality improvement, habitat diversity, water elevation adaptability, while beautifully blending in with the natural shoreline.


COST
The price range of the islands will vary from $25-$35 a square foot, planted and installed. This provides an alternative to traditional constructed shoreline technology and requires virtually no maintenance. The addition of floating wetland habitat represents biomimicry at its best, cleaning polluted water and naturally restoring the balance to a more optimal level.





Picture
Floating islands schematic from our friends at Floating Islands International.
Picture
Colter installing a young floating island on a 12 year old project near Hyalite Creek, Montana. 
Picture
A Biodock in action. A fantastic addition to floating islands.

TEDX Talk on Transition Water and Floating Islands

`Our longtime friend and collaborator Bruce Kania gave a TED Talk about Transition Water and the role that floating islands will play in getting there by using nature as a model. Check it out. 

DESCRIPTION

In our drive to provide food for a growing world population,we have invented then squandered billions of tons of artificial fertilizer, impairing most of our surface waters over the last 70 years. By viewing this fertilizer as a resource, we can “transition” these water-borne nutrients back out through the food-web, while creating more abundance, more food and transitioning water towards sustainability. 


A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bruce has focused his professional career on product invention, intellectual property development and licensing since 1992. After enjoying success in the fields of prosthetics, textiles and sensor technology, his life-long fascination with the interrelation of natural and human systems, combined with his passion for the outdoors, led him to conceive the idea for what eventually became the technology behind the BioHaven brand of floating treatment wetlands. Today, Bruce is CEO and Research Director of Floating Island International, Inc., and is the Chairman of the FII Board, as well as being the principal owner of Fountainhead, LLC, FIIs parent company. He remains actively involved in licensing, demonstration projects and promotion, while pursuing his quest for holistic and effective solutions to nutrient-impaired waters, working with Nature through the practice of biomimicry.

TESTIMONIALS

"I can't thank you and the guys enough for your great work! I am so excited for the future of both rivers. We have made such an improvement to the habitat. I couldn't be more proud of the two projects! All my best."

-Michael L. Bateman


​
"In 2012 I hired Urbani Fisheries LLC to restore a section of river along my property. ​Today the whole aquatic system is better off and I have caught some of the biggest fish of my life. They use a holistic approach and work well with all the players to get the job done."
​
​-A. Cooke (New Jersey)



"In 2011 the Raritan Associates, a very old fly fishing club on the North Branch of the Raritan river in New Jersey, contracted with Urbani Fisheries, LLC to do some major stream  habitat improvement  & restoration work on the stream. This work included deepening certain pools, building rock weirs and placing boulder clusters in certain parts of the stream to create pocket water generally increase aquatic invertebrate habitat. Joe Urbani and our club worked very closely with the Natural Resources Conservation Service with whom we had a WHIP contract to help finance this important work on the North Branch.

The actual work took place over about a ten day period during which time Joe Urbani and his top flight crew were on site each day as the restoration work was implemented in accordance with an approved plan. Urbani Fisheries built approximately 16 pools and used the spoils to build point bars for the purpose of narrowing the channel cross-section. Likewise, banks were stabilized with boulders and plantings in order to mitigate erosion. 

During the entire process Joe Urbani and his crew were professional, competent, caring and thorough in all their work. The end result is a dramatically improved fishery and a restored trout habitat that has produced a superb fly fishing experience for our membership."

-B. Danforth Ely- President, Raritan Associates    


​

Contact us

(406) 587-0588
Address: 198 North Star Lane Bozeman, MT 59718
Fax: (406) 585-9126


FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA 
  • Home
  • Approach
  • Process
    • Pond, Lake, & Wetland Methodologies
    • Stream & River Methodologies
  • Other Service Areas
  • Results
  • Our Team
  • Store
  • Contact
  • Fieldnotes