Several organizations have just filed a lawsuit challenging the way the US Army Corps of Engineers is managing levees in California; the outcome will have implications for levee management elsewhere in the country as well.
After Hurricane Katrina, the Corps began reexamining its nationwide levee policy, and one of the changes it made was to ban vegetation within 15 feet of levees. The lawsuit maintains that implementing this policy in California will destroy habitat for endangered birds and fish, and argues that the policy should not be carried out without regard for regional differences.
An article in Erosion Control three years ago examined in detail the issues with the Corps’ new levee policy. In addition to destroying habitat, some say, the practice of removing established trees and other vegetation will potentially weaken some levees.
The organizations filing the suit are Friends of the River, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Defenders of Wildlife. You can read their summary of the issues here.