NAHANT — Dozens of residents visited Northeastern University’s Boston campus to hand deliver a bound collection of signatures from those opposed to the proposed expansion of the Marine Science Center Tuesday.
“We respect the employees and the scientists,” said Diane Monteith. “We support their curriculum and their programs. But the expansion is unacceptable as presented.”
Nearly 1,700 people signed the petition, which requested that Northeastern University “reconsider their plans for building a 60,000 square-foot ‘dry’ office and research facility, and related facilities, at East Point” and to “conduct in-depth, independent research on the impact of the current seawater pumping system on marine life and environment before proceeding with modification to that system to increase pumping capacity.”
“Our goal is to preserve East Point as the conservation area it is today,” the letter reads. “East Point is jointly occupied by the Marine Science Center on land owned by Northeastern University and by the Town of Nahant’s Lodge Park. Natural beauty, geological wonders, abundant wildlife, flora and fauna thrive in the exceptional environment and know no boundaries. It is not difficult to imagine the impact of a 60,000-square-foot building, no matter how skillfully designed, on this unique natural environment. It would be devastating.”
Supporters of the letter boarded a yellow school bus at the Lowlands parking lot with hand-made signs and ribbons in hand to personally deliver the signatures, attached to an open letter to the university, to president Joseph Aoun and vice-president John Tobin.
“Groups delivering petitions to the office of the president is common at all major universities,” said Renata Nyul, vice-president of communications at Northeastern University in a statement. “Northeastern officials accommodate groups who deliver their petitions peacefully and we ensure that the documents are reviewed appropriately. Northeastern has campuses across North America, and we take the views of our host communities seriously.”
Volunteers went door to door and camped out at popular locations to collect the signatures, said resident Jim Walsh. He estimates about 75 percent of registered voters in town backed the letter.
“The purpose is to bring to the attention to the president and Board of Trustees the significant error that is being made by them in Nahant,” said Walsh. “They are taking away the last place people can go to embrace nature in wildest form.”
The hope is for the university to look for a more appropriate place to conduct their urban coastal sustainability initiative, said Walsh.
“We are not against Northeastern, we are not against science, we are not against education,” he said. “We are for protection our natural environment in the town of Nahant.”
