“Once you mess around with nature – if you remove something from the food chain – that space isn’t reserved for it to come back,” says Mr. Mark Kurlansky, author of “The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell. “It’s very difficult to reverse these things because the absence has had all sorts of repercussions in nature.”

James Cervino, a professor of marine biology at Pace University in New York City, recognizes this fact as well. In College Point, Queens, in New York City, Professor Cervino displays his idea to help reverse the trend of damage we’re doing and have done to the waters of New York City.

He calls it “the electric oyster reef project.” He’s installed a series of spiral-shaped bands of metal in the shallow water. At low tide, they jut from the water like giant strands of DNA. The end result will be water that is habitable for oysters, at least for a certain proximity.

Oysters filter the water. That’s their job. When they are removed from an ecosystem because of pollution or over harvesting, the water becomes polluted and dangerous. Cervino’s idea is a way to reintroduce nature’s natural janitors into damaged water systems. So far, it’s proven to be a success but there’s a long, long way to go.

“If we recreated oyster reefs, we’d clear the water.” say Cervino.

It’s good news for all of us when ingenious people like Professor Cervino dream up ways to clear up our waters.

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