Defenders Speaks for the Trees in California, Opposes California Levee Clear Cuts

Tree debris litters the ground alongside a levee in Natomas, California after the Army Corps ordered levees across the country to be stripped of plant life. Photo courtesy of Ron Stork.

Consider the humble tree. Not only are trees beautiful, but they also provide the air we breathe and create habitat for wildlife.

But that’s not all. Here, in California, trees alongside rivers and streams are essential to threatened and endangered animals such as Chinook salmon, Swainson’s hawks and even the easy to overlook valley elderberry longhorn beetle.

That’s because tree roots prevent soil from crumbling and muddying the waters. Their shade also helps to keep rivers fresh and cool.

Sadly, some 95 percent of riverside forests in the Golden State were cut down long ago to make way for our homes, offices, shopping centers, farms and other developments. The vestiges of these once great woods now exist as stands of trees on and near river levees, providing some of last riparian (river-related) habitats in the state. But soon even these holdouts could face the axe.

Riverside habitat under threat

The levee clear-cut policy could impact Swainson's hawks.

The Army Corps of Engineers has declared war on all plant life (except for some grasses) living alongside levees across the entire country. The new policy requires levee owners to clear cut tens of thousands of miles of levees in California alone–turning rivers into little more than barren channels.

The orders came in reaction to tragic levee failures in 2005 that claimed thousands of lives in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Army Corps says that the decision is an effort to improve public safety.

But there’s a big problem: Levee vegetation was not the cause of the flooding in New Orleans. And there’s almost no scientific evidence that trees jeopardize levee safety. In fact, many levees in California were actually designed to work in partnership with trees and other plants, whose root systems help to stabilize soils along the riverbanks, according to the Army Corps’ own scientific reviews.

Levee clear cut policy jeopardizes public safety

What’s worse, in a letter to the Army Corps, the California Department of Water Resources (which maintains California’s levees) and the California Department of Fish and Game write that the new policy would divert funding away from levees in need of crucial repairs, causing a real public safety concern.

Chinook salmon also depend on riverside trees for healthy habitat.

Despite the pleas for reason, the Army Corps has continued to march forward. In California, the trees have started to fall. That’s why Defenders and our conservation partners have jumped in front of the axe and asked a federal court to stop the Army Corps assault on California’s levees.

Levee safety can be achieved without clear cutting some of the surviving riverside forests in the Central Valley and destroying habitat for struggling species like salmon, steelhead trout and willow flycatchers. But it’s now up to the court to make sure the levee trees that don’t jeopardize our safety stay standing tall.