On a walk in the woods, Frank Golet, professor of wetland ecology at URI, left; Thomas A. Dupree, forest expert, center; and Keith Killingbeck, professor of biological sciences, visit the vernal pond.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Just two minutes’ walk from his office in the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Institute, Frank Golet steps into a forest of red and black oak trees nearly a century old. The school is very lucky, he says, to have a forest so old and so close.

He peers into a small pool, and identifies a column of softball-sized gray clumps — wood frog egg masses. He pulls a stick from the water, and another egg mass clings to it — a translucent glob of spotted salamander eggs.

Golet, the scientist who taught many of the region’s wetlands biologists during the last three decades, along with botanist Keith Killingbeck, forest expert Thomas A. Dupree, and other URI scientists, say they teach more than 1,200 students every year in the several hundred acres of woods along Flagg Road, just north of the Kingston campus. Because it has been undisturbed for nearly 100 years, the forest is a unique environment right at their doorstep.

That now seems to be at risk. URI administrators are eager to start work on a research park for private high-tech firms that they believe is essential to the university’s future. They think it is critical to locate the park across from the Coastal Institute, the new biotechnology center and the upcoming College of Pharmacy building — right in the heart of what is called the North Woods.

The biologists have suggested moving the research park a few hundred feet to the west, onto a field between a parking lot and a former town dump.

But even that small move would defeat the impact of having the business people working alongside URI researchers, says Robert A. Weygand, the university’s vice president of administration.

“It’s certainly an interesting dilemma,” Weygand said. He said he recognizes the concerns of the biologists, but he also believes moving the research park anyplace else will cause delays and threaten the viability of the park.

“The only thing that really sells the research park at URI is it being integrated into the fabric of the university as close as possible,” said Weygand. “Even being moved just a little bit removes that intimacy.”

The choice between the park and the forest is to be made by university President Robert L. Carothers before he steps down on June 30. It is shaping up to be his biggest decision in his waning days as president.

The dispute has been brewing for more than a year, but has received scant public attention.

Thomas Husband, another biologist, said his fellow scientists have been reluctant to speak out. But they are also frustrated that all of their lobbying has triggered only minor compromise so far.

“I’m at the point where I feel like chaining myself to a tree,” said Husband.

The university’s Faculty Senate voted on March 26 to appoint a committee of faculty and students to evaluate a location for the research park that preserves the so-called “Century Forest.”

Stephen K. Swallow, a professor of environmental and natural resources economics, chairs the committee. The administration is on a tight deadline and it wants a recommendation quickly.

When the university announced plans for the research park in October 2007, it was touted as a project that would expand URI’s research power and generate revenue by attracting big corporations eager to work alongside URI’s top research scientists.

Weygand said then that it would cost about $12 million to $15 million to construct the park’s first building. He said the university had already talked to several companies, but there were no agreements.

A 130-page feasibility study favored the Flagg Road site over four others that were examined. Other sites were two locations in Peckham Farm, URI’s East Farm and the South Ferry Industrial Park near the Bay campus.

All of the sites are relatively close to the campus, but not the short walk provided by the Flagg Road site.

In scoring each site, the consultants considered such factors as proximity to a major road, road capacity, availability of utilities, site preparation costs and proximity to research anchors. But they did not seem to evaluate the educational or environmental value of the sites.

Last week Golet, Dupree and Killingbeck showed off some of the forest’s scientific value.

Dupree, the retired chief of the state Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Forest Environment, teaches a forest-management course at URI and had his students do a survey of the Century Forest in 2008. They found it withstood the Hurricane of 1938, which was unusual, and there was no harvesting for about 100 years, also very unusual.

While Rhode Island is heavily forested now, most of the trees are relatively new. There are few places where you can find an undisturbed forest of 100-year-old trees, Dupree said. To have those trees within walking distance, he said, is invaluable for teachers and students.

Weygand said the park only needs about 20 acres of the 350 acres owned by the university. URI has offered to set aside some of the land, including wetlands near the pool where Golet found the frog and salamander eggs.

But the 80 acres that biologists want to protect coincide almost precisely with the land earmarked for the research park.

During the walk, the professors came across a small pool that was probably created back in the 1800s as a watering hole for cows. It is lined with cut stones. A massive maple, maybe 150 years old or more, looms overhead.

It is the perfect spot to teach, Golet said. This year, for the first time in 30 years, budget shortages prevent him from using vans or buses to go elsewhere.

“I don’t see much room for compromise,” said Golet. “Either you put it where they want, or you don’t. It seems to me to be a conflict between two legitimate university uses.”

plord@projo.com