It is part of wider plans to return the creek - which has been heavily modified since the discovery of gold in the 19th century - to a naturally vegetated waterway.

A series of frog ponds would be dug along The Boulevard in White Hills to harvest stormwater for use in public areas under the plan, an application lodged with the City of Greater Bendigo's planning department state.

The ponds would cover one hectare and improve the creek's water quality and reintroduce plants culturally significant to traditional owners.

MAP: Pin denotes approximate location of project

The project is being driven by Dja Dja Wurrung Enterprises.

"The proposed frog ponds will emphasis the strong connection between the creek and the local Indigenous communities," the planning application states.

"An informal path will weave in and out of of the frog ponds, allowing guided groups to experience the different habitat types, and discover traditional Dja Dja Wurrung plants."

Ponds and patches of permanent and temporary marshland would be a haven for birds and other wildlife, including the vulnerable growling grass frog, the report states.

Once widespread across south-eastern Australia, the growling grass frog has decreased over time and is now confined to a few sites.

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Weeds including one willow tree, 10 peppercorns and 0.8 hectares of cooch grass would need to be removed.

So would 10 native trees less than ten-years-of-age and a small patch of native grasses, which the application said was needed for construction of the ponds and revegetation with culturally significant plants.

Specialists have been brought in to plan for, and monitor, the risk of contamination during construction, the report states.

"Like much of Bendigo, the site has been subject to significant alluvial mining activity in the past," it states.

"It is well known that much of the land along the Bendigo creek was subject to intense mining activity from the early 1850s through to the 1930s."

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