By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Ravenna Creek is the neighborhood's Holy Grail. It's a quixotic attempt to right a wrong, to turn back the clock, to give Mother Nature a second chance in a restless city.

The neighborhood wants to rescue the clear-running brook by digging a new 4,200-foot stream bed from Ravenna Park to University Slough, where the waters enter Lake Washington.

The creek once ran from the northeast corner of Green Lake down Ravenna Boulevard through Ravenna Park to a bog near the site of what is now University Village. But after the water levels of Green Lake and Lake Washington were lowered, Ravenna Creek all but vanished. What is left is a persistent year-around freshet fed by springs, runoff and groundwater.

At the edge of Ravenna Park, the stream drops from sight into a grate. A sewer pipe transports the water across Seattle to the bowels of Metro's West Point sewerage treatment plant.

Metro decided several years back that it would be cheaper to simply pipe the stream into Lake Washington. That was the call to action for Ravenna's activists. Sensing a unique opportunity to do something great, Ravenna rallied behind the idea of opening the creek to daylight once again.

The proposed stream would run under several streets, past a row of apartments, follow the Burke-Gilman Trail and finally cross beneath the Northeast 45th Street viaduct by University Village, says Kit O'Neill, president of the Ravenna Creek Alliance.

A landscape architect, O'Neill sees the project happening in stages, enhanced along the way with small bridges, boardwalks and crossings. It could become an informal meeting place, a feat to inspire future environmental stewards.

"Once you realize what the possibilities are, and you think it might come about, it is compelling," O'Neill says.

As much as anyone, O'Neill has kept the dream alive for the past six years. She and hundreds of supporters have pushed, prodded and extracted a promise of $3 million from King County to fund the project. But more money is needed -- and soon.

A request in November to put the project on the city's capital improvement program list for future funding consideration was rebuffed by the City Council, even though the council adopted a resolution supporting the project in 1994.

The council is not against the project. But it was unwilling to bend its rules, which prohibit adding new capital projects to a mid-biennium budget.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, said Ravenna residents who did not care for the council's process. They just want to save the creek, which continues to draw volunteers and classrooms to its banks.

Fifth-graders at Bryant Elementary School have planted new vegetation along the stream bed. Seniors at University Preparatory Academy use it as classroom to teach younger students about water quality and stream habitat.

Although its potential to someday serve as a salmon spawning ground is questionable, O'Neill says that's not the point: "The creek is a learning tool regardless of what ends up living in it."

Pacific Chorus frogs may be the newest tenants to live by the stream. The frogs are making a comeback, thanks to the effort of Ravenna's Macomber family.

"We consented to let the kids bring home a few frog eggs," George Macomber begins. "The idea was as they grew up we would sort of let them spawn. When we got up to 1,200 tadpoles, at that point we starting calling around."

That was about three years ago. After meeting with biologists, state fish and wildlife officials and others, the Macombers got a green light to take the tadpoles to the park. Three frog ponds have been built, the last by a Boy Scout earning an Eagle's badge.

Last year, the Macombers helped supply 30 classrooms at 18 schools with frog eggs. More recently, they took a few of the family frogs to Bryant Elementary, where their kids attend school. "They were too loud to leave at home," George Macomber says.