Our property extends to this wooded area behind our fenced in property... my wife and I have been cleaning this area up and have plans in the future to do something with it, for now we are cutting down saplings and cleaning up trees that we like. We have a creek that cuts right through the property, it basically goes dry from July through November. This last year we had some serious rain storms that had the creek just out of control. We have this tree that we really like that is on the bank of the creek and the water basically cut the soil out from the side of the tree and now have these root stumps exposed.

I want to save the tree, I'm not sure if I can or not... but based on the pictures it looks like the root system is pretty solid. These root stumps that are stick out towards the creek bed... can I cut them off without it hurting the tree?