Editorial: BU gets a chance to do right by river

A Boston Herald Editorial

State Environmental Affairs Secretary Robert Durand has pointed Boston University in precisely the right direction for its proposed new sailing pavilion, an underutilized Charles River site that would benefit from some attention.

BU's current facility - little more than a large shack near the BU Bridge - has long been a hazard to bikers and runners who must make their way around it.  The university wanted to trade that in for a 1.5 acre site just upriver on which it proposed to put an installation three times the size of the current one.

The site the university settled on - not surprisingly - was perhaps the choicest piece of land between it and the Hatch Shell.  In his decision Durand noted that particular site "supports a variety of passive recreational uses, such as walking, biking, skating, and resting.  These activities occur along a long, central uninterrupted segment of publicly owned waterfront, with unobstructed views of the Charles River and beyond."

The secretary concluded that parcel should stay open and unobstructed and asked the university to focus its final required environmental impact statement on a site near the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge - a sorely neglected area now a jumble of highway ramps.

That site not only won Durand's endorsement, it also won approval from the Charles River Watershed Association, which along with a number of back Bay neighbors was bitterly opposed to BU's first choice.

Boston University would be wise to abandon its attempted legislative end-run around the state's environmental approval process, behave like a good citizen and accept the waterfront parcel now on the table.