Damage from cleanup could outweigh oil spill.

• Position: Gulf Coast - Brief article

While the effects of the massive Gulf Coast oil leak will be devastating for coastal wetlands and beaches, the cleanup process could be even more damaging to the areas sensitive ecosystems, maintains Christopher B. Craft, former president of the Society of Wetland Scientists, who specializes in biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in coastal and inland wetlands, focusing on restoration of tidal marshes such as those found along the Gulf Coast.

"Sometimes the cleanup can be as hard on the environment as the oil itself," cautions Craft. "They do things like pressure washing rocks and sand, and any kind of attached organisms get blown off. They may end up excavating sand off beaches. The marshes, which really dominate the Louisiana coastline, are mostly vegetation, and cleanup there--and elsewhere as the spill spreads--is really going to be problematic."

Craft indicates that the region's coastal fisheries industries, which supply shrimp, shellfish, oysters, and crabs to our...