Student group protests new art museum
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Members of a new campus group contend construction for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum destroyed a small wetland, but MSU officials insist it could not be classified as such.
Jeremy Loy, a 22-year-old East Lansing resident who helped found MSU Students for a Wild Campus with forensic science sophomore Tim Burkey, said the group’s members will rally Tuesday at the museum’s ground breaking in hopes of bringing the issue to light.
But MSU officials and a local environmental consulting firm said the site is not a wetland. Instead, they said the site is home to soil types disturbed throughout the years, most recently by the destruction of the Paolucci Building several years ago.
Loy said he stands by his classifying the site as a wetland, and wants MSU to replace it.
“We just want to get the attention of the people and the architects and the contractors and tell them we did notice,” Loy said.
Linda Stanford, the university’s associate provost for academic services and one of the art museum’s project leaders, said the university tested the site prior to construction vehicles’ presence.
“It is not a wetland,” Stanford said. “It has water in it because we’re at the end of winter. The ground is soft, but it is not a wetland.”
Mike Serafini, a geologist with Mason-based Strata Environmental Services Inc., said the site does not meet the definition of a wetland set by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
According to that definition, a site is a wetland if it is “land characterized by the presence of water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and under normal circumstances does support, wetland vegetation or aquatic life, and is commonly referred to as a bog, swamp, or marsh.”
Serafini said he was contacted by MSU officials to determine whether the site was a wetland, and used maps from the Department of Environmental Quality to come to a conclusion.
“With respect to this place, it’s not a wetland that supports wetland fauna or wetland aquatic life,” Serafini said.
Loy said he disagrees with the university’s assertion the site was not a wetland.
“There was standing water and aquatic life,” Loy said. “It’s technically a wetland by the federal government’s standards.”
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aaaaamazing!
(03/15/10 10:42pm)Report
OMG…ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
A Wetland?! Its less than a block large and is the OLD SITE OF A BUILDING THEY JUST TORE DOWN.
“It is not a wetland,” Stanford said. “It has water in it because we’re at the end of winter. The ground is soft, but it is not a wetland.”
The fact that you cannot distinguish between ground with water on it and a wetland makes me really hope you are not an MSU student.
Jeffwantstaknow
(03/16/10 8:35am)Report
What does the state of Michigan say? Call the friggin’ DNRE in Lansing. They’re close by.
Sparty
(03/16/10 4:02pm)Report
Wow…. just wow.
newt
(03/18/10 11:16pm)Report
Mr. Loy’s comment that it meets the conditions for federal regulatory status is wrong. Technically, a wetland can be any size. Whether it’s a regulated area is a totally different question, though. Not all wetlands are regulated. ‘Regulated’ wetlands (meaning a permit is needed before modification is allowed) rely on three general criteria: Hydrology of the site, vegetation, and soil types. Two criteria have to be applicable to the site for State regulation, and all three must apply to a site for Federal regulation. There’s more details within the regulatory statutes, but the criteria are a good general test.
I was about to give his group the benefit of a doubt, for inexperience, until I saw a picture of one of the Facebook members in the MSU garden pond. I sincerely hope that she didn’t trample the rare species of wetland plants that are placed on the edge of the pond.