We've been fortunate to have a 20-acre site. We just finished construction this summer. Half of it was funded through the industry, as part of the Urban Development Institute, and with some of the green industry partners. The intent was to better the constructed wetlands practices that are currently happening. Both Calgary and Edmonton, as part of their land-use planning and land-use bylaws, support and promote the use of constructed wetlands, particularly in new urban developments. In effect, we're trying to slow down runoff into the existing infrastructure. As we build out, we get more hard surfaces and a greater volume of water, and our existing infrastructure can no longer support the rush of water going through the systems. By creating constructed wetlands in our communities, we have the ability to slow that down, to clean our water or cleanse it out through the proper use of planting regimes. In some cases, we reuse it for irrigation of public spaces, as well as for sediment removal. So what we're putting back into our river basins is of reasonably good quality after passing through a built environment.
We're still looking at improving the systems. This is not to say that it's totally bulletproof, or that it's the silver bullet, for that matter. Through our students and programs, as well as through research funding, we're looking at different kinds of plant materials, what the benefits are, what toxins they can pull out of the water. Whatever we can find, we're putting that out to industry and to government agencies. We're also negotiating with a couple of partners on looking at brownfield restoration within the city environment and how can we build water treatment through a constructed wetland in those cases.
The other part, which goes back to the previous guest, was to the loss of wetlands through urban development, and identifying natural wetlands and what could be lost. In Alberta it's essentially a three-for-one: if you disturb a hectare, you put back three hectares. So we are trying to replace or replicate what we're disturbing.