An eco-friendly solution to removing pollutants: Thunder Bay biotech firm unleashes microbes on contaminated sites.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: THUNDER BAY

A Thunder Bay biotech company has developed a homegrown solution to remediating contaminated industrial sites in Northern Ontario.

Established in 2014, BioNorth Solutions is the creation of two school buddies: its president, Amber Kivisto, and Miranda Lock, the chief scientific officer.

Their six-employee environmental consulting company specializes in bioremediation of contaminated soil, mine tailing waste, and wastewater and sludge treatment using lab-enhanced microorganisms.

It's the same approach that was used in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico where billions of tiny hydrocarbon-eating microbes were unleased to remove thousands of tons of oil from the water.

Kivisto and Lock first met in a lab at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.

Kivisto attained a master's in genetics, while Lock has her master's in microbiology and a PhD in environmental biotechnology.

The idea to go into business together came about as they were lamenting the lack of opportunity to find work locally as environmental scientists.

"We had to create our own, or move," said Kivisto. "Because I had business experience --previously co-owning a heavy equipment company--that came into play, and we decided to go for it."

Out in the field, their team conducts a microbial profile at the contaminated site to select what bacteria naturally exist. They test it to see how effective it is against either hydrocarbons or mine tailings. From there, they customize a solution in the lab.

"Sometimes it's as simple as giving (the bacteria) an extra food source, like a sugar-type base, that will increase their growth, and adding a chemical that will start activating to remove whatever the case may be, whether it's hydrocarbons or ammonia," said Kivisto.

"We're working with whatever is there, and we're just trying to enhance it and make it more efficient.

"With hydrocarbons, they literally eat the oil. They break it down into shorter carbon chains, and at the same time they're expelling CO2 and water."

Last July, they moved from their original Dawson Road location into new downtown space at the corner of Cumberland Street and Red River Road where they have a fully equipped microbiology lab with incubator shakers, centrifuges, and a DNA section.

At the same time, they opened a spinoff production division, Microbriate, which featuring their spill kit product.

Kivisto attributes the spill kit idea to her business partner...