The Peninsula Drainage District will sponsor a Q & A session this Wednesday August 15th starting at 6 PM at the Columbia School (Marine Dr. & NE Bridgeton Road).
All Bridgeton residents who care about our trees and our levee must be there!
At the August 8th drainage district board meeting to approve the fast tracking of the bidding process to cut down Bridgeton's trees about 25 Bridgeton residents showed up to voice their displeasure with the way the drainage district was pushing their plan through without proper neighborhood, or public, notification and input. At that meeting Bridgeton residents informed the drainage district's board about the new scientific studies (UC Davis and others at www.na.fs.fed.us titled "levee armoring") that have forced the Army Corps of Engineers to sponsor a scientific symposium on August 28-29 and announce that the levee landscape guidelines will be re-written by January 2008. The Sacramento Corps office also notified the drainage districts in that area that there would be "NO Cutting" of Sacramento levee trees until the new guidelines are issued and reviewed!
Why hasn't our drainage district requested an extension similar to California's?
Why has the Portland Army Corps of Engineers office not issued a "NO Cutting" order similar to Sacramento's?
Why was our drainage district board unaware that the guidelines were being re-written and that we could have received an extension?
Why is the drainage district ignoring new studies that show the value of "armoring" levees with trees and woody plant material?
AMAZINGLY, Bridgeton residents were shocked to hear at the August 8th meeting that even if the Army Corps was going to re -write the rules and that new scientific data indicated that trees actually strengthen the levee and the removal of the trees will possibly weaken the levee, the Peninsula Drainage District had already made it's decision, and therefore refused to change it, and that Bridgeton's trees would be cut starting the first week of September!
It is very important that Bridgeton residents attend this meeting. It is clearly obvious that the drainage district has made a very serious error and now, unfortunately, refuses to acknowledge that error.
Your support is needed NOW!
Your letters, calls, and emails to Sam Adams, Mayor Potter, The Army Corps of Engineers and our Congressional delegation are needed NOW!
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