Clearing the Growth--and the Record

Last week's post in response to a USAT story about endangered levees stirred up a hornet's nest of comments. My post restated what authoritative reports have made clear: that the catastrophic breaches of the levees in the New Orleans area were primarily due to design and construction flaws, under the supervision and control of the Corps of Engineers, rather than to lax maintenance (which the Corps, in the report unearthed by USAT, blamed for nationwide levee vulnerability). Some commenters pointed out, though, that at least one independent report cited some instances of lax maintenance in New Orleans, specifically trees allowed to grow on or near levee structures, and others laid this problem at the feet of local authorities.
I bring all this up again because of this story in today's T-P. The thrust: the trees (and fences, also present at those canal levees) are being removed, now, pronto. That's interesting, but more interesting is by whom they're being removed: not the local levee district, but the Army Corps of Engineers. Which raises the question: if it's the Corps' job now, was it the Corps' job back then?