The roots of cattails form a "biofilm," where bacteria gather and devour nutrients.

In 1994, dairy farmer Hector Dignard had a problem that really stunk. His farm near Embrun, which included an open manure pile, a feedlot and milk-house for his herd of around 250 cows, bordered a nearby creek — and unfortunately, healthy bodies of water and piles of manure don't often get along.

Manure, as every farmer and gardener knows, is chock full of nutrients that do an excellent job of promoting plant growth — the perfect fertilizer.

But dump these nutrients wholesale into a lake and river, and the perfect fertilizer runs amok.

When liquid runoff from manure piles washes into the groundwater, lakes and rivers get an overdose of nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen, and the results can mean death to an otherwise thriving water-ecosystem.

One way this occurs is through an algae bloom, where over-fertilized algae grows unchecked across the surface of the water, depriving other unlucky lake-dwellers of light and oxygen.

Dignard, like many farmers, had a large holding lagoon to catch liquid runoff from his manure pile, but water from his feedlot was still getting into the creek.

Worse, Dignard had to get rid of both the solid waste and liquid wastewater accumulated in the lagoon once or twice a year — a costly effort in terms of time and money.

"There was lots of liquid, it was a lot of work for nothing," he says. "It didn't make sense."

But unlike many other farmers, Dignard didn't simply grin and bear it. He volunteered to be the first farmer in the region to try an innovative new solution for his problem - a constructed wetland.