MILES WORTHINGTON/THE ITHACAN EMPTY BENCH FRAMES stand in front of the Campus Center while the college waits for new mahogany benches to arrive. The new benches should be installed this week.

The Ithaca College Environmental Society is fighting to have a college-wide environmental policy passed in the wake of controversy over the installation of new benches in the Campus Center Quad.

The benches, which are made of mahogany wood from African rainforests, were ordered as part of a summer construction project.

The controversy over the new benches was first brought to the surface by junior Anna Ehrlich, vice president of the Ithaca College Environmental Society, and senior Sean Vormwald, president of ICES, who read the campus construction story in the Aug. 31 issue of The Ithacan. They said they were immediately concerned the mahogany was coming from rainforests.

The initial assumption was that the mahogany came from South America, exporter of a large percentage of the world’s mahogany.

The college avoided South American mahogany and chose African mahogany, Public Information Director Dave Maley said. Mahogany was chosen because it was the best wood for the project, said Fred Vanderburgh, assistant director for construction and facilities maintenance.

“It holds up well to weather,” Vanderburgh said. “It has no annual rings like trees from North America. It doesn’t sliver, it’s pretty much insect repellent, and it lasts forever.”

Ehrlich said administrators did not realize that African mahogany is also a rainforest wood. She said the continued logging of such wood for commercial purposes not only destroys large areas of rainforest, but also causes endangered species to lose their homes.

Ehrlich said she would originally have liked for the school to sell the timber back to the company and purchase other material.

But Vanderburgh said it is too late to return the wood because the work is near completion in cutting the wood to make the new benches. Knowing this, ICES has decided to concentrate on passing a hardwoods pledge and an environmental policy by the administration.

“One of [the ideas being brought up] is a pledge that simply deals with banning the purchase and use of tropical hardwoods,” Ehrlich said, “It’s actually a pledge that was made up for companies, but we would adapt it for the institution.”

The new environment policy is made up of eight principles aimed at making the college more earth friendly, Ehrlich said.

“There are a lot of other colleges that have principles that ...when they make every decision a college makes, day by day, they look into what environmental impacts that will [have],” Ehrlich said.

The draft has been submitted to the administration, which is now working on a new draft. The final draft will then be submitted to the Board of Trustees for approval.

New benches were needed because the old ones were splintering and attracting bees, Vanderburgh said, who made the decision in June to have the old redwood benches removed.

The new benches should be installed sometime this week, Maley said. The school ordered African mahogany wood from Southern Tier Hardwoods in Collins, N.Y., with an estimated bill of $7,000, he said. The original benches were gifts to the college from various senior classes.

“Plaques will be placed on the appropriate benches to designate which benches were gifts from which classes,”said Director of Alumni Relations Graham Stewart.

Ehrlich added there are other options available that should continue to be examined to avoid similar conflicts in the future.

“A really good option now is, industry has found a way to recycle plastic into imitation timber that actually looks a lot like real wood,” she said. “Most people don’t notice the difference.”