Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at Oregon's Crater Lake

St. Patrick’s Day is about the color green. For example, on March 17th of each year the city of Chicago turns its namesake river running through downtown green with an environmentally benign dye. Suppose some St. Patrick’s Day celebrants in Oregon decided to turn Crater Lake green on March 17th. As its name implies, Crater Lake is set in a volcanic crater, and it is very round. Crater Lake is a National Park and if you want to see a picture, it is on Oregon's quarter dollar coin. Assume that Crater Lake is perfect circle five miles across and ignore for purposes of calculation small Wizard Island which is near the lake's west shore. Assume that it takes ten pounds of green dye to tint one square mile of water. How much dye would the Oregonian celebrants need to order for their St. Patrick’s Day project?

Bonus question: Do you think the National Park Service would allow someone to dye Crater Lake green for one day?


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