CAL POLY - The snails discovered last month on land where Cal Poly plans to build a huge dormitory are not the protected variety they were first thought to be.

The revelation means the environmental review for the 2,700-bed project can go forward. Cal Poly officials have said the construction phase of the project was not slowed by the snails; the first of three phases is on track to open in 2008.

The variety of Morro shoulderband snail discovered on campus is different than the protected type, said Steve Kirkland, a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"It appears to be much more common," he said, and is not considered a protected species.

The project was originally scheduled to open in 2006 but was delayed two years in January, after the CSU Chancellor's Office ordered all 23 campuses in the system to decrease enrollment in the wake of state budget cuts.

Cal Poly reduced its enrollment by nearly 600 students winter quarter, to 17,540. In addition, university officials eliminated state-funded summer school and anticipate between 600 and 800 fewer students than last fall will be admitted for the coming year.

Larry Kelley, the university's vice president for Administration and Finance, said the construction phase of the dorm project is scheduled to begin in the summer or fall of 2006.

Kelley anticipates the state's fiscal crisis should begin to turn around by 2008, when about 900 of the 2,700 beds are expected to be available. About 900 will be added each of the next two years.