'the Gulf's dead.'

[Peremensoe]

I find this very sad. And ominous.

@CNN

Kruse, 55, a charter boat captain who had been hired by BP to help clean Gulf waterways and render them safe, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Wednesday on board one of his own vessels.

“Most definitely a suicide,” said Rod Steade Sr., deputy coroner for Baldwin County, Alabama. “No question about it.”

Kruse shot himself with his own gun, kept on board his boat, which was also named “Rookie.” He sent two of his deckhands on an errand before killing himself. He did not leave a note, and none of his friends suspected he would do something so extreme.

“He must have had his demons,” said Captain Bryan Watts.

For 14 days, Kruse had been using his boats to haul protective boom off of Alabama’s shores, instead of captaining them on the hunt for snapper and amberjack.
…
Kruse told his family that he believed the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had effectively killed his livelihood as well as the ocean.

“He just thought it was over,” said brother Marc Kruse. “He said, ‘the Gulf’s dead.’ … There was no hope that the fishing was ever going to come back … not in his lifetime.”

[Al_Bundy]

The BP compensation effort is turning up the fact that so many of the employers and employees there were working “off the books.” They were not paying any income or employment taxes. They have been screwing the general public for all these years. Now they have no receipts or tax forms to support their claims for compensation. Either BP has to just accept any claim they make and if they do, the fed could come in and charge them. That anxiety may drive others to the same suicidal fate as the captain. In the long run, I bet the fed will simply refuse to do anything regarding past tax fraud so the sky is the limit for claims.

[cosmosdan]

That is so very sad and tragic. He may be right. It will take a decade or more for nature to recover, and who knows what stupid shit mankind will pull in that time.

[Lobohan]

He was definitely correct that Gulf fishing wouldn’t come back in his lifetime.

[threemae]

@Lobohan

He was definitely correct that Gulf fishing wouldn’t come back in his lifetime.

Unless you’re punning on his suicide, that’s a ridiculous statement to make. The oil release has been substantial, but not even orders of magnitude higher than typical annual seepage rates and it certainly hasn’t destroyed the environment of the entirety of the gulf. We won’t know how much ecological devastation this has caused until it’s largely resolved, I don’t think that serious estimates think that even the most contaminated waters now won’t be fishable again within a decade.

[Chessic_Sense]

@threemae

Unless you’re punning on his suicide, that’s a ridiculous statement to make. The oil release has been substantial, but not even orders of magnitude higher than typical annual seepage rates and it certainly hasn’t destroyed the environment of the entirety of the gulf. We won’t know how much ecological devastation this has caused until it’s largely resolved, I don’t think that serious estimates think that even the most contaminated waters now won’t be fishable again within a decade.

He was, in fact, punning on the suicide.

[Miller]

Moved from the Pit to MPSIMS.

[John_Mace]

@Chessic_Sense

He was, in fact, punning on the suicide.

Joking, maybe, but that wasn’t a pun.

[NinetyWt]

@threemae

Unless you’re punning on his suicide, that’s a ridiculous statement to make. The oil release has been substantial, but not even orders of magnitude higher than typical annual seepage rates

One order of magnitude, perhaps:

Thus the Deepwater Horizon site releases 9 to 39 times the oil per day compared to that released by natural seeps across the entire Gulf of Mexico.

Cite.

@threemae

and it certainly hasn’t destroyed the environment of the entirety of the gulf. We won’t know how much ecological devastation this has caused until it’s largely resolved, I don’t think that serious estimates think that even the most contaminated waters now won’t be fishable again within a decade.

As I understand it, the fear is that the oil spill will disturb the creatures at the bottom of the food chain such that fish won’t be able to survive; and that the spawning of fish will be interrupted so that the next few generations will be very small in number.

The negative effects of oil on organisms and ecosystems are well-documented. Oil causes harm to wildlife through physical contact, ingestion, inhalation and absorption. Floating oil can contaminate plankton, which includes algae, fish eggs, and the larvae of various invertebrates. Long term damage to lower trophic levels is difficult to assess, but could pose ecological risks in the Gulf of Mexico for years, based upon interference with metabolic functions of thousands of species; benthic organisms in the inner and outer continental shelves could be affected from oil coating of substantial portions of the ocean floor.

From here.

[elelle]

I’m sad that Kruse was sent into such a despair that caused him to see life as unlivable, taking the extreme choice. Here’s another excerpt from the OP link:

Allen Kruse called the program “madness,” they said, and told relatives it was a sham.
His brothers said he told them that cleanup boats were put in the water close to shore, so people would think they were making a difference.

“It’s just a dog and pony show,” said Marc Kruse. “Send them out. Ride around. Let everybody see them. Bring them back in.”

Kruse was out there on the frontline of this disaster, seeing it all in a way that we at large don’t. I’ve been amazed at how little concrete photos and coverage there is considering the magnitude of this. And, NinetyWt’s above post only illustrates the damage of the oil, not even the larger damage that the contamination that the dispersant used will cause.

For someone like Kruse, whose life depended on the Gulf ecosystem, daily going out into the water to make a living— it had to have torn his heart out to see it destroyed. Fishermen love their life on the water, for it’s independent spirit and toughness, but also the beauty of it: the good guys love the diversity of life at sea.

I can imagine that wading around in sludge, and seeing what we aren’t yet would be soul crushing to someone who loved the land there. Plus, piling that in the wake of Katrina/Rita devastation is more crushing.

My sister has weathered NOLA post Katrina, and said that for a good while after, Everyone was on Prozac, just to cope with the mind -numbing destruction. This oil spill is the same sort of mind-numb, and that’s another ripple effect. Will BP be liable for that??? Probably not, too far from provable in court. But, it’s very real and debilitating. More than any belly can.

[aruvqan]

I have a similar perspective on this, my friend Jonathan lives an hour in from the coast in Mississippi. He can smell oil when the wind blows in from the sea, his mother lives on the shore and can see the cleanup “happening” and his uncle was blown out of his bed rather abruptly when the drilling platform got shaken by the blowout to see his friends and co-workers killed or injured by the blowout. [He is fine, and onshore in Houston right now. Yes they did try and pressure them to sign paperwork before taking them to shore.]

BP fucked up, the US Government fucked up royally [NEVER FUCKING TRUST BIG BUSINESS TO REGULATE ITSELF, IT NEVER WORKS] and all the other companies working with BP fucked up[what, at no time did you consider refusing to take shortcuts?], and it has damaged the gulf irreparably for eternity. The water may clear, but the resident populations of wildlife, sea life and plant life will never ever be the same.

[Diceman]

Allen Kruse called the program “madness,” they said, and told relatives it was a sham.
His brothers said he told them that cleanup boats were put in the water close to shore, so people would think they were making a difference.

“It’s just a dog and pony show,” said Marc Kruse. “Send them out. Ride around. Let everybody see them. Bring them back in.”

Unfortunately, I’m inclined to believe this. BP and the Feds say that there are thousands of boats in the Gulf working containment, but whenever you see a news report on a beach, there’s never more than one or two boats visible. (The news reporters often comment on this.) They’re not even trying to clean up the marshes, which are far more important ecologically than beaches. However, the beaches are much more visible than marshes are.

[rbroome]

@Diceman

Unfortunately, I’m inclined to believe this. BP and the Feds say that there are thousands of boats in the Gulf working containment, but whenever you see a news report on a beach, there’s never more than one or two boats visible. (The news reporters often comment on this.) They’re not even trying to clean up the marshes, which are far more important ecologically than beaches. However, the beaches are much more visible than marshes are.

Cleaning the marsh would cause more damage than letting the oil stay. A march is mud with vegetation growing on it. A single footprint destroys not just the vegetation, but the the substrate (mud) that supports the plant. Leave it alone. The oil might kill the plant but next year the plant might be back. Stomp it down while cleaning it and there is no chance of anything growing for years.