For most of its three decades of existence, the waterway stretching through the campus arboretum has lain still, green and murky. But in the collective imagination of about 30 faculty and staff members, the elongated pond looks something more like this: Fed by cascading waterfalls, the stream flows through a changing landscape of wetlands, arroyos, islands and water gardens. Wire-mesh reinforcements along the banks have been replaced by native plants, creating habitat for California fish and wildlife. The water, if not crystal clear, is at least no longer algae-green. That image emerged during a five-hour brainstorming workshop held last Friday at the Putah Creek Lodge. Participants included campus planners, horticulturists, environmental designers, engineers and others interested in improving water quality in the 1 1/2-mile-long pond, which serves as the campus's main collection basin for storm and irrigation runoff. While their efforts so far remain just notes and rough sketches on paper, organizers said other campus developments could create the right opportunity to make the water cleaner. In particular, they said, the campus's new wastewater-treatment plant is scheduled to open next November, providing a source of recycled water that could be pumped into the waterway and ultimately used to irrigate campus athletic fields. In addition, arboretum directors are about to develop a new master plan for the 95-acre parkway, which maintains a collection of more than 4,000 different kinds of trees and plants, is used by more than 50 classes at UC Davis and is visited by about 250,000 people a year. Recent construction of the Aggie Village neighborhood, a planned bike path connecting the campus and downtown to south Davis and future construction of the Center for the Arts across Old Davis Road promise to make the arboretum even more a focal point for the region. A window of opportunity "This may be a time when we can start building consensus," for improving the waterway, said Bob Powell, a chemical engineering and materials science professor and faculty assistant to Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Robert Grey. Powell, whose frequent jobs through the arboretum heightened his interest, said he and Grey have had informal discussions about cleaning up the water over the past three years. Starting over a year ago, Powell and Harvey Himelfarb, then vice provost for academic planning and personnel, launched more serious talks with Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Darrell Ralls, arboretum director Kathleen Socolofsky and others about what could be done. They solicited the help of landscape architecture professor Mark Francis, who worked with a student, Luke Griffith, in developing three scenarios for the waterway. The simplest involved pumping 200 gallons of water a minute from a campus well into the eastern end of the waterway, plant-ing vegetation along the banks, and possibly adding water gardens at the shores and fountains in Lake Spafford and the western pond. A second proposal would pump even more water from the well into the waterway, creating a cascade at the eastern end and changing water levels throughout the creek bed. At the other end, water would be pumped from the pond and piped to irrigate recreational fields near Recreation Hall. Other waterway features included arroyos, islands and water gardens. The third scenario would pump treated water from the new wastewater plant into the middle of the waterway, creating flows in both directions. Water could be pumped out of the western end and sent in two directions--north to irrigate recreation fields and south into Putah Creek. At the eastern end would be a weir at the A Street bridge and a wetlands area. The waterway also could be extended along the planned bike path to south Davis. "There's a lot of potential here, a lot of opportunities to do something," said Griffith, a senior in landscape architecture. Many people attending last week's workshop rejected the idea of pumping well water into the waterway, saying that it wouldn't provide enough water to make a measurable difference. They said they liked the idea of reusing treated water instead. However, campus planner Bob Segar said the treatment plant still wouldn't provide enough water to adequately flush the creek. Mary Burke, arboretum museum scientist, suggested that the campus work to improve the quality of water entering the waterway. Suggestions included filtering runoff that enters the creek through storm drains and reducing effluent from nearby animal barns. Desire to create a model system Participants said they wanted the UC Davis watershed to be a model of resource management, and that the campus should recreate as natural a system as possible. Their proposals included creating wetlands to help get rid of nutrients that foster algae growth in the pond, and creating narrower, deeper channels to encourage water to flow. Others suggested allowing parts of the creekbed to dry up in the summer. Powell said suggestions made by workshop participants will be used to develop a recommendation to submit to the provost. Efforts such as last week's workshop also will help arboretum director Socolofsky and her staff develop a master plan for the arboretum's collections, some of which are 60 years old, Burke said. Improving the waterway is one of the biggest challenges facing the arboretum, she said. Visitors frequently comment on the way it looks. "They walk in and before they see the collections, they ask, "What's wrong with the water?'" Burke said while the arboretum may seek an outside consultant to help draft a master plan, advice from the garden's many campus and community supporters will be crucial. "I think we have an environment where a home-grown solution could be extraordinary because of the caliber of scientists and humanists we have on this campus," she said. "There's nothing like it in the world. I think we have a wonderful opportunity to collaborate on an arboretum master plan that will make our campus and community proud." Efforts have been made in the past to improve the waterway, which is located where Putah Creek once ran before Davis settlers diverted it away from downtown in 1872. Lake Spafford and the waterway were dug from the old creek bed in 1969, both to enhance the arboretum and campus entrance and to prevent flooding in south Davis. A 1991 campus-funded study by civil engineering professor Jeannie Darby and graduate student Denise Connors recommended, among other things, that sediment be periodically removed from the pond. Thousands of cubic yards of mud that had accumulated over the past three decades were scooped from the pond bottom over the past two summers.