A representative of citizens against building the Superconducting Super Collider in Illinois asked the Student Association Sunday to oppose the collider’s location in Illinois.

The senate has not taken a position on the issue. SA Sen. Jana Stringfellow requested the senate remain neutral.

SA Vice President Cam Davis said he does not know whether the senate will vote on the issue.

Ed Kist, a member of Citizens Against The Collider Here, said the super collider is pure scientific research “to understand the basic building blocks of the universe.”

Kist said the only advantage of the project which he can see is that in the future it might help “develop cheaper and more efficient energy resources.”

County Clerk Terry Desmond spoke at the SA senate’s Feb. 14 meeting and said the super collider will benefit the Illinois economy and will be an advantage to NIU.

He said the collider would bring great scientific minds to the area, and many of the scientists might teach at NIU.

Desmond said construction of the supercollider will provide more than 7,000 jobs for labor and more than 3,000 specialized jobs will be retained.

Kist said those jobs would not necessarily got to Illinoisans.

“Seven states off the bat were not interested” in the proposal, he said. The number of states that supported proposals for the project began at 43, dropped to 25, and now seven states are in support of it, he said.

The desire for the project has “dwindled tremendously,” he said.

The super collider site in Illinois would take five to seven years to complete, Kist said.

It would cover an area from Kaneville to St. Charles to West Chicago to North Aurora and back again, he said.

CATCH member Sherril Kist said West Chicago would be affected the most.

When CATCH asked the Department of Energy how many and which homeowners and businesses would be affected by this project, Ed Kist said they refused to show them the tax maps.

CATCH is suing the Superconducting Super Collider for Illinois and the Dept. of Energy for the list of homeowners, he said.

Ed Kist said, “Illinois and the Dept. of Energy is not giving all the facts, (and) if the full magnitude of this thing is known, the opposition is going to mushroom.”

Desmond said, “Funding for the $4.5 billion collider is one of the greatest federal endeavors in the history of the government.”

Ed Kist said that sum is the projected cost in Illinois funds, and it does not include federal funding. He said the tax revenue from the site would be a $116 million return on a $4 billion investment.

CATCH is “not totally against this project in theory,” he said, but the collider “should not be built in Illinois.”

He said, “I think it’s important to look at human costs.” Kist said CATCH believes 5,000 homes and businesses would be destroyed because of the collider.

He said it should be done “at the least possible cost” so that the “least amount of people are hurt by it.”

Sherril Kist said Arizona is in favor of the site because it would affect only eight families. She also said no one would be affected in Michigan because it is in a very rural area.