Sacramento Topics

Trees grow on the levee where I-80 crosses the Sacramento River August 25, 2011 in Sacramento, Calif. A new research report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers appears to disprove its own policy banning trees on levees. The study not yet publicly released, concludes that trees located on the lower third of a levee can actually strengthen a levee and improve flood protection. The Corps has maintained since Hurricane Katrina that trees are dangerous because roots could provide a path for seepage that could undermine a levee. The new study disproves that, and could force the Corps to reconsider a controversial policy that would eliminate millions of trees in the Central Valley.

Yolo Bypass manager David Feliz (cq) , with the state Department of Fish and Game sits on on his airboat at the Yolo Bypass on Tuesday, February 2, 2010. The Yolo Bypass is flooded for the first time since 2006 due to high water in the Sacramento River following recent storms. As a result, it's become a vast wetland filled with new-hatched insect blooms feedings schools of native salmon and splittail fish -- and even more waterfowl. The transformation highlights an ongoing debate over a possible broader role for the bypass in restoring the Delta.

Workers use a boat Tuesday to help them remove two floating gangways from the Sacramento River as historic but crumbling Raley's Landing is disassembled in West Sacramento. The city has plans for a publicly owned dock on the riverfront.

Delta fog clears Wednesday morning along the Sacramento River near Sherman Island. A series of foggy mornings and dry afternoons has left Sacramento with just 0.07 inches of rain this month, among the region's driest Decembers on record since 1849.