Arboretum Waterway

More updates on the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project: splash pad concrete poured, weir creation begins, new Learning by Leading Student Co-Coordinators

Updates on the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project: unexpected rainfall, new pump delivered, new path being constructed

The Arboretum Waterway is not only the centerpiece of the Arboretum; it is an essential piece of our campus’s water infrastructure. Despite its high-profile importance, the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden has never had a staff member actively managing it, until now! Please welcome to our staff Waterway Steward Nina Suzuki!

Major updates about Phase 1 of the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project, including a temporary dam, our new waterway steward, our successful Waterway WOW! campaign, sediment removal, bank reshaping and more!

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.

Thanks to Gladys Cosens for her $15,000 gift that kicked off the Waterway WOW campaign. Gladys was the Arboretum’s lead challenge donor for the UC Davis Give Day on April 21-22, 2017. Her Give Day challenge inspired over 60 other donors to make gifts in support of the campaign.

We anticipated that construction on the first phase of work would start this past summer and continue through the end of the year, but that timeline has been shifted to begin slightly later. Read further to find out the reason for this timeline alteration and learn more about other exciting developments related to the Arboretum Waterway.

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.

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.