Should there be a lesson in that, maybe?

Probably not. It's too much to get your head around.

Now broken in two and less than 2 miles long, the island is a mere shadow of the long, sturdy chunk of land Roosevelt visited in 1915, eight years after he made East Timbalier one of the nation’s first wildlife sanctuaries.

The protection didn’t last. Most barrier islands are bereft of natural resources, but East Timbalier promised such a bonanza to oil companies that its federal protections were largely ignored and, in 1969, revoked. A slew of companies have drilled more than 160 wells in and around the island. Canals dug to locate fonts of oil were the first alteration that sped the island’s unraveling. The canals allowed saltwater to seep in and the soil from the crumbling banks to flow out.

See Teddy wanted them to save an island. But later they decided instead that is needed to die for "The Economy." That seems like the wrong choice now but then again maybe not. We're still making it all the time.

And I'm not only talking here about our choice to march hundreds of meat packing workers off to their deaths so we can keep quartet pounders on the dollar menu, although we are doing that too. No I'm talking about the choice to continue deliberately sinking the coast for the sake of oil exploration. Remarkably,  that is still the long term strategy.

Lafourche did not join seven other coastal parishes — Plaquemines, St. John the Baptist, St. Bernard, Vermilion, Jefferson, Cameron and Orleans — in suing oil and gas companies for widespread environmental damage. The lawsuits, which charge that the companies failed to follow state law in drilling wells, building canals, disposing of waste and restoring wetlands, have encountered fierce opposition in the Legislature.

On Wednesday, May 20, the Senate narrowly passed a measure aimed at killing the lawsuits. Critics say the lawsuits are chilling investment in Louisiana. A big settlement could fund an array of restoration efforts as money from the BP settlement, a main funder of coastal projects, dwindles.

About that "chilling" effect. Are they sure?