Final answer:
Theoretically, enough oysters in the Chesapeake Bay could filter all of the bay's water in one day. However, due to overharvesting, pollution, and needed population densities, the current diminished oyster population takes much longer to filter the bay's water.
Step-by-step explanation:
To assess whether enough oysters could filter all the water in the Chesapeake Bay, we can calculate the filtering capacity. Given the values, the bay covers about 2.9 million acres and each acre can support up to 750,000 oysters. Each oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. If we multiply the number of oysters per acre by the number of acres and then by the number of gallons each oyster can filter, we get:
(2.9 million acres) × (750,000 oysters/acre) × (50 gallons/oyster/day) = 108.75 trillion gallons/day.
Since the bay has at least 15 trillion gallons of water, this calculation suggests there could be more than enough oysters to filter the bay's water in one day. However, real-world factors significantly affect this theoretical capacity. The restoration of the Chesapeake Bay's oyster population has been ongoing but is complicated by overharvesting, pollution, and the need for adequate population densities for reproduction. The diminished oyster reefs, changes in water conditions, and disrupted ecosystems make this theoretical filtering capacity difficult to achieve. The once thriving oyster population that could filter the bay in days now takes nearly a year to filter the same volume of water, indicating the present population's diminished capacity.