As its license plates proclaim, Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Now a Minneapolis-area company says it has figured out the secret to the state's famously crystalline watering holes: moss.

Specifically, species of sphagnum moss that the start-up, Creative Water Solutions, envisions will keep tens of thousands of swimming pools clean while drastically reducing the use of chlorine and other harsh chemicals.

The patented treatment system, which the company has sold for backyard swimming pools since 2007, underwent its first large-scale commercial test this summer at a public aquatic complex in St. Paul.

"I think this is going to have a dramatic effect and change the whole aquatic industry," said Thomas Schaffer, a 35-year pool industry veteran hired by St. Paul to monitor the moss treatment of an Olympic-size pool and a smaller children's pool. "We saw a one-third decline in chlorine demand for the water immediately. We're now using two-thirds less chlorine."

According to Dr. David Knighton, a founder of Creative Water Solutions and its chief executive, moss treatment inhibits the formation of bacterial colonies called biofilms. Chlorine kills free-floating bacteria but biofilms absorb the chemical, requiring ever-greater doses to keep a pool clean.

"If you stop its ability to proliferate, the biofilm wears itself out," Dr. Knighton said.

With the moss keeping a pool's biofilms under control, much less chlorine is needed - just enough to kill free-floating bacteria. The moss also eliminates the need for cyanuric acid, which is traditionally added to outdoor pools to stabilize the chlorine.

Dr. Knighton, a physician who holds several patents for medical devices and systems with a business partner, Vance Fiegel, said the idea for moss water treatment germinated from a magazine article he read about how moss was used to sterilize wounds in the age before antibiotics.

"We just rediscovered what's been used for centuries," he said. "Northern Minnesota is known for its clean clear lakes, and that's one of the reasons." Dr. Knighton realized he was on to something, he added, when he dropped some moss into his home spa and within a few days the water was crystal clear.

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