The Legislature finds and declares as follows:

(a) Although the levees of flood control projects in this state have in the past been considered to be single-purpose, flood control features, many of these projects receive heavy nonlocal usage for recreation, transportation, and other purposes for which the retention and maintenance of vegetative cover is desirable.

(b) Construction and maintenance practices have been developed over the past several decades which were designed to minimize costs while still furnishing the required degree of flood control. These practices in many instances resulted in “bare” levees, devoid of any vegetative cover which might interfere with local maintenance, levee inspection, or flood fighting.

(c) Flood control project levees are increasingly recognized as valuable wildlife, recreational, scenic, and aesthetic resources, and construction and maintenance standards have been developed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the State of California which minimize vegetation removal and which encourage or require, as a condition of the project work, replanting and controlled vegetation maintenance on such levees as part of the responsibility of local flood control districts.

(d) Costs of maintaining vegetation on levees for such non-flood-control purposes as wildlife enhancement, recreation, and scenic beauty are approximately double those of normal flood-control-related maintenance, and nonlocal users are the prime beneficiaries. It is therefore appropriate that the general public participate in meeting such additional maintenance costs.

(Added by Stats. 1973, Ch. 995.)