Crews working along the Sacramento River have wrapped up this year's levee-protection push in the city's Pocket neighborhood, placing 180,000 tons of graded stone and installing roughly 750 trees in the water to bolster flood defenses and fish habitat along the riverbank.
The milestone was reported by DredgeWire, which said the Sacramento River Erosion Contract 3 team had completed its 2026 season, with the stone placed to support flood protection and the trees installed to enhance fish habitat. The contract itself covers about 2.8 miles of riverbank on the river's east side and was awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to The Dutra Group in April 2026 for $71.1 million, according to a report from DVIDS.
Construction on that contract began in June and is expected to continue through December 2027, the same report notes. At Sites 7 and 8 in the Pocket and Greenhaven area, crews have been using barges to deliver and place large quantities of rock along the east bank — the same barge-based method that moved this year's 180,000 tons of stone into place.
Why the Levee Needs Reinforcing
USACE project manager Roberta Tassey described the active construction as essential groundwork for the levee's long-term stability. “You're seeing the construction necessary to prevent seepage and stabilize the levee,” Tassey said, per the DVIDS account.
The stretch of levee under repair is part of the Lower Sacramento River East Levee System, which runs roughly 12 miles between downtown Sacramento and the Town of Freeport, according to the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency. That system protects essentially all areas of the city south of the American River and west of Highway 99, the agency says. The Corps began constructing improvements to the levee system back in 2019 to address stability issues and bring it up to modern standards, SAFCA notes on its projects page.
Part of a Larger, Years-Long Effort
The work is one piece of the broader American River Common Features 2016 project, a federal, state and local effort aimed at reducing flood risk across the Sacramento region, per the same DVIDS report. The erosion-protection effort overall includes up to 10 miles of work along the east bank, stretching from near the American River confluence south toward Freeport — and SAFCA says the Corps is anticipated to build up to an additional 10 miles of riverbank protection along the levee system in the years ahead.
Dutra has handled earlier phases of this same erosion-control campaign. In 2023, the company's Delta Operations Team was facilitating Contract 2 of the Sacramento River Erosion Contracts for the Corps, a project that included nearly 500,000 tons of rock revetment from the San Rafael Rock Quarry, according to Dredging Today. More recently, Dutra's work on Contract 4 used about 45,000 tons of quarry stone across 1,700 feet of levee, delivered and installed by barge from San Rafael to Sacramento within two narrow work windows set aside to protect sensitive fish species, the company says on its Dutra Group project page. That contract also featured an experimental coir-block system designed to support soil, cut down on surface erosion and help plants grow within the levee's planting benches.
What Comes Next in 2027
According to the seed report from DredgeWire, Dutra plans to return in 2027 to place approximately 220,000 additional tons of graded stone, along with 20,000 tons of soil and 1,200 more trees. Those figures reflect the company's stated plans for next year's work, layered on top of the 180,000 tons of stone and 750 trees already placed this season along the Sacramento River levee.
