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

Update on levee

Ed Hecker is with the US Army Corps of Engineers and sent this to the neighborhood association...

* USACE is reviewing existing policy and standards for vegetation
management using a four-step process. During the review, USACE will work in coordination with other federal and non-federal agencies, including regulatory agencies.

* Steps one and two: USACE will conduct the review using current
engineering and science studies and practices. The review will identify recommended modifications to existing nationwide vegetation management policy and standards, which will undergo an external peer review.

* Step three: USACE will then identify the regulations, policies and
manuals and changes necessary to implement any modifications to existing vegetation management. Use of regional variances regarding vegetation management may be considered as long as public safety is not compromised.

* Step four: Policy and standards, and implementation will be
discussed as part of a National Roundtable to be held in early 2008.

* The policy and standards document and the implementation plan are intended to be issued simultaneously.

* USACE vegetation management policy and standards will focus on public safety first and reflect a systems approach applying sound engineering, science, and operations and maintenance principles.

The policy and standards document and the implementation plan are intended to be issued simultaneously shortly after the national roundtable, subject to completion of the External Peer Review process.

Regards,

Ed Hecker

Come and visit

If you like trees, water and community activism - come to Bridgeton tomorrow evening at 5:30 as we show our support for sanity, tress, and our neighborhood. This precedes the 6:00 PM meeting with the Drainage District. The demonstration will take place outside the Columbia School [Marine and Bridgeton intersections]

Mayor Potter, Commissioners Saltizman, and Cogan and the entity of North Portland neighborhoods have joined in asking for a moratorium on our tree removal while the Corps looks further into research and analysis of levees.

What is the rush here? Who exactly is making the decision?

Those are my questions. i have been a researcher and we ask to see both sides of an issue - knowing that rushing to decision making often leads to poor decisions. Federal Government agencies are not known thees days for their scientific look at anything.

So let's take a calm and reason look at trees and levees- especially the situation in Bridgeton. We not only have trees on our levee - we have housing on the town side of the levee....The trees have been here for a long time. I read about the recent meeting in Sacramento where it was noted that denuding levees of trees may make it easier for the burrowing animals to do their thing... and thereby off a worse levee situation with tree removal.

No one has yet showed me facts about what happens on Bridgeton if we keep trees. It's gotten to be a one sided - they must be removed and soon not only because I said so - but because it will soon rain and that's inconvenient.

Iraq anyone?

Message from the neighborhood association

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!