Why remove the oil beneath the sand along Gulf beaches when you can just let it sit there forever? It's not hurting anyone. That's the thinking of some "experts," at least. What you can't see won't hurt you!

BP wants everyone to know that their track record of responsibility speaks for itself, and that the company is fully committed to "polishing" the coastline. And really, why shouldn't the public trust them? Mark DeVries, deputy incident commander for BP in Mobile, Alabama, spoke with the AP:

That's our commitment — to return the beaches to the state they were before," Devries said. "We're referring to it as polishing the beaches."

But not everyone is convinced that all of this cleanup business is necessary. For instance take George Crozier, a marine scientist from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who thinks everyone should just suck it up and learn to live with it:

Buried is buried. It will get carved up by a hurricane at some point, but I see no particular advantage to digging it up," he said. "It's a human environmental hazard only because people don't want to go to the beach if it's got tar balls on it."

Okay. So we don't need to get all worked up about this, because once the leak is stopped crews can turn to dredging up sand from the bottom of the Gulf to spread along the shore. It's expensive, sure, but there's no way the cleanup effort will be neglected once the leak is plugged, this is America we're talking about! But then there's the little problem of a contaminated Gulf floor, which could put a damper on things, especially since no one can figure out how much oil has spilled, and it might be hard to dodge the 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells already down there. Oh well. At least the leak will be plugged by July 27!

[Image via Getty]