Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Levees and Trees - still in the news

COLUMBIA, La. (AP) — The Army Corps of Engineers is on a mission to chop down every tree in the country that grows within 15 feet of a levee — including oaks and sycamores in Louisiana, willows in Oklahoma and cottonwoods in California.
Cut em down is still the Army Corps of Engineers mantra.
Experts outside the corps say a tree has never caused a U.S. levee failure.

"If trees are a problem, why aren't we having problems with them?" said George Sills, who formerly worked for the corps' Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Miss. "There's never been a documented problem with a tree."
And Halpin, the corps' dam and levee expert,
said the agency does not know whether a tree has ever directly caused a levee failure. But he noted that dam failures have been linked to trees, including a 1970s collapse in Georgia that claimed 39 lives.
And so because a dam failed maybe due to a tree - levees will lose trees. As we said when I was a kid: "clear as mud."

Full article: http://cli.gs/Vb5H0E

No comments: