The facelift for the East and LaRusso lagoons has ruffled the feathers of some local and national rights advocates.

The $8.5 million project began Aug. 1 and is expected to be finished this fall, according to the campus construction Web site.

The East Lagoon will be deepened to four feet and the LaRusso Lagoon will be tripled in capacity, reducing the risk of flood damage. The shores of both lagoons will be complemented by a variety of native plants.

Abby Minton, a DeKalb resident and animal rights activist, has accused NIU of breaching its agreement of safely relocating the inhabitants of the lagoon during its reconstruction.

“They said it would benefit the wildlife and that about 90 percent of the animals would survive,” she said. “Thousands of fish, frogs and other animals have since died.”

Melanie Magara, assistant vice president of public affairs, denies the university ever estimated how much wildlife would survive.

“I don’t know what they are talking about 90 percent,” Magara said. “How would you know how many animals were in the lagoons in the first place? It’s not like the animals participated in a census. We believe that we handled this in a way that showed a tremendous amount of responsibility on behalf of the university.”

Steve Hindi, president of the nationally recognized organization S.H.A.R.K. (Showing Animals Respect and Kindness), visited the LaRusso Lagoon late in the summer and concluded that conditions were unsafe and that NIU officials had been inconsiderate of the lagoon’s inhabitants.

“The water level was too low for any animals to pass into the Kishwaukee River as planned,” Hindi said.

On Aug. 18, animal rights activists protested in front of the lagoon in hope of receiving supplies, canoes and nets to help save the wildlife. Volunteers entered the lagoon with minimal supplies to rescue the animals.

Minton said the volunteers saved between 175-200 animals, but thousands of others could not be rescued.

“If they were unwilling to make a sincere attempt to save the animals, they could have at least killed them with poison so they wouldn’t suffer,” she added.

Joe King, assistant director for the office of public affairs, said poisoning the lagoons would have exterminated everything. Animals who did migrate successfully into the Kishwaukee River would have been killed unnecessarily.

Minton also claimed that local police threatened to arrest the volunteers for trespassing on private property.

“The police kept coming by every three hours just to make sure we weren’t in there trying to save the suffering animals,” she said.

King said volunteers were kept out of the lagoon for their own benefit.

“People were prohibited from entering the lagoons because conditions were extremely unsafe,” he said. “The lagoon was filled with animal dung and toxic waste. One professor in the biology department described it as septic.”

Hindi had nothing but praise for the Dekalb police.

“When you do work like this you run into good cops and bad cops,” he said. “These guys were as good as I’ve seen. I only wish I could encounter officers like them everywhere.”

Magara firmly stands behind NIU’s handling of the lagoon issues.

“We are proud of this project and confident that members of the community will find it very beneficial,” she said.