The University of California, Davis, and the environmental group WaterKeepers have reached a settlement in a May 2000 lawsuit that claimed the campus was illegally polluting Putah Creek.

UC Davis and WaterKeepers Northern California have agreed to a number of actions that the campus will take to improve the creek's environmental health.

Officials for both parties said the agreement was made to avoid prolonged and costly litigation and was not an admission of any violation of law.

"This is a historic settlement that commits UC Davis to a wide range of improvements in its approach to pollution control," said Bill Jen-nings, director of DeltaKeeper, a WaterKeepers project. "We look forward to working with the university in its efforts to set an example of technological innovation and environmental stewardship."

Julie McNeal, UC Davis acting director of operations and maintenance, said, "We have agreed to take these steps because we believe that water quality is an important issue. We share DeltaKeeper's commitment to ensuring that Putah Creek has the highest water quality possible."

Putah Creek flows from Lake Berryessa in Lake County through the Yolo Bypass to the Sacramento River and the bay. It forms part of the southern boundary of the UC Davis campus.

Treated water from the campus's new wastewater treatment plant is discharged to the creek at the rate of 2 million gallons per day. Some untreated surface-runoff water also reaches the creek from the campus through storm drains.

In the settlement filed in U.S. District Court, called a consent decree, the campus agreed to a number of actions to improve water quality and its discharge-monitoring programs, including expanded programs of visual observations and chemical analyses. The actions, many of which are already under way, will:

• Ensure that all discharges from the Aquatic Weed Research Lab, which is jointly operated by the campus and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, meet required standards.
• Improve the handling of water runoff from maintenance activities and rainstorms at the campus airport, fleet facilities and landfill.
• Develop and implement new plans for handling wastewater and storm runoff from animals pens, paddocks and barns.
• Acquire a permit for ongoing discharges from the Arboretum Waterway to Putah Creek, and develop a plan for improving the waterway's water quality.
• Study and implement new means of meeting existing legal limits on copper and aluminum in water discharged to the creek from the new wastewater treatment plant (which began operations in October 1999). That does not prevent the campus from continuing to legally challenge those limits as unnecessarily strict.

UC Davis agrees that if it fails to fulfill its commitments by agreed-upon deadlines, it will pay fines ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 each to the Friends of the Arboretum organization for Putah Creek restoration.

The campus also agrees to pay $525,000 of the WaterKeepers' legal expenses in this case.

Campus officials noted that they historically have acted in the interests of the Putah Creek ecosystem. In 1983, the campus set aside 150 acres along the creek's north bank as a natural reserve and study area.

In 2000, the university was a leader in resolving a 10-year dispute over Putah Creek water rights between Solano County water agencies and a consortium of the environmental group Putah Creek Council, UC Davis and the city of Davis.