A speaker at the Olds College Dinner Party in the Wetlands is working on ways to use wetlands to filter out water and make it clean.
Steven Tannas runs a company called Tannas Conservation Services Ltd. He spoke during a fundraising dinner and tour of the wetlands on Aug. 24.
“Water is more important than any other resource, and wetlands are a key component,” Tannas said. “And that's the next big environmental issue: the shortage of water and where does our clean water come from?”
He said he's been working on how to take heavy metals out of water.
“How do we use wetland plants to naturally take them out?” he asked. “Can we actually utilize our wetlands to pull out things more than just nutrients? Can we use the wetlands to actually clean our ecosytem?”
Tannas praised the Olds College wetlands.
“When you look out here, what they're actually doing with these storm ponds, the sequence of from pond to pond flowing into each other, where you can actually filter out different things through different species, through different structures of plants, there's a lot of stuff that you can actually learn right in here in these wetlands and the potential is endless,” he said.
“This complex we've got here is unlike anything I've ever seen, where we can actually look and test different things.
“We have the lined wetlands which we can test in much more controlled conditions. We have the non-lined ones which actually give more of an ecosystem functional display.
Tannas said wetlands are key to our survival as well as that of many species of animals.
“If we didn't have wetlands, you wouldn't have well water,” he said, adding that wetlands also not only provide habitat for ducks and geese but also larger animals.
“Things like deer, moose, elk – any of our larger animals – can't exist without water bodies and there are not enough rivers to support them,” he said.
Tannas said many of our rare species exist only through wetlands.
“Unfortunately, rare plants are usually this tall,” he said, stretching out his hands “and the ugliest things you'll ever see in your life,” he added, provoking laughter. “But they're important for things. A lot of times we don't know what they're important for yet.”
Wetlands were also useful during our unusually wet summer this year.
“We have had record rain. You don't have flood events because the wetlands are capturing it,” he said.
"Can we actually utilize our wetlands to pull out things more than just nutrients? Can we use the wetlands to actually clean our ecosytem?"STEVEN TANNAS
