Clean Team

– Mike Vogel, Florida Trend – November 2020

Removing the phosphorous and nitrogen that cause the well-documented troubles in Lake Okeechobee, the estuaries and Everglades has proven a technical and budgetary challenge. Now, the South Florida Water Management District, the regional water regulatory body, has awarded a $3-million contract to a Melbourne company that says it has an innovative way to pull the nutrients from water flowing into the lake. Ferrate Solutions uses an iron-based compound that binds with phosphorous and turns nitrogen to gas to remove the nutrients from water. The company will build a treatment plant at a canal feeding the lake in Okeechobee County and then treat water for two years. “We are very pleased to have the opportunity to demonstrate this ground-breaking technology at a full-scale treatment area at Lake Okeechobee,” says Thomas Waite, Ferrate’s CEO and founder.