Arboretum Waterway

Thank you Waterway WOW! donors

Thank you to everyone who gave to the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden’s Waterway WOW! campaign this spring! New donors plus many generous members, volunteers, community members, and alumni made gifts totaling over $68,000, exceeding our goal for the campaign.

Preparations for waterway maintenance and enhancement project begin

In preparation for phase one of the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project, the water level has dropped a couple of feet throughout the Arboretum waterway. Not wanting to the upset the wildlife that has now made the Arboretum Waterway home, the campus team working on this project is releasing water only from the dam on the west end of the waterway while keeping the influx of the campus’s recycled water constant.

Boat dock removed from Arboretum waterway

Today, January 9, 2015, a team from UC Davis Civil and Industrial Services, led by Matt Hayes, operations engineer, removed the old Arboretum boat dock. It’s been hanging on for quite some time, but uneven, shaky footing combined with rotting wood and a weak attachment to land made the dock too unsafe for our visitors.

Landscape improvements in west end of Arboretum to improve stormwater quality

You may have noticed that we’ve installed hundreds of yards of erosion control fabric along the banks of the waterway at the west end of the Arboretum. The banks were prepped and seeded with a mixture of native grasses and covered with this material to assist in establishing the vegetation. This project is part of a partnership with UC Davis Environmental Health and Safety to improve our campus’s stormwater quality.

The turtles are back!

A couple of weeks ago a grading project was taking place along our Putah Creek waterway to provide a research venue for faculty and students in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, create a much-needed waterway improvement for our campus utilities department, AND restore the habitat of the native Western Pond Turtle.