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.”