What are we talking about by "gone?" Economies gone, or actual land gone?
One scenario- tourism and fishing economies become unsustainable.
Another scenario- land becomes uninhabitable because it beomes toxic, either from the crude, or the dispersant, or both.
There was a report a while ago from a Russian mineral agency to Medvedev that it is their belief that this event will destroy the south east US. They stated that the core exit 9500 could become a gas as the water heats over the summer, and that it would be sucked up into rain clouds and rained out over land, killing everything.
I don’t know if this is true or even possible, but someone seems to think that pouring millions of gallons of mutagenic, carcinogenic chemicals into the water is better than oil being visible on the surface...
I was speaking on the discussed theory in the thread of the gomex turning into a sink hole.