"Bay pollution is not only an ecological disaster, it's an economic one, too," said Ann Jennings, the group's Virginia director.
For example, the decline of the Chesapeake oyster alone has cost Virginia and Maryland more than $4 billion over the past 30 years, the report said.
Wow! That seems like a lot of oysters. In fact, let's do the math.
$4B over 30 years is over $133M/yr. (I'll assume they're talking about current dollars.)
But how many oysters is that? Well, as of two weeks ago -
The buyers had been paying as much as $42 per bushel but, this week, they lowered the price to $35, said Danny Webster of Deal Island. And rumors are circulating that the price could drop to $30 next week.OK, at $35/bushel that $133M is going to buy us 3.81 million bushels of oysters per year. Given that the average American eats only about 1 1/2 ounces of oyster meat per year, that ought to pretty well supply all of us.
