LRI'S LEGAL CLAIMS BASELESS

For promptly signing the legislation to protect Pierce County's sole-source aquifer and the Northwest Trek wildlife park, Gov. Locke deserves admiration and a share of posterity's eventual gratitude for the courage and farsightedness of state Sen. Marilyn Rasmussen and Rep. Tom Campbell.

Events of the past decade gave Land Recovery Inc. eight timely opportunities to back down from its unwise plan to build that ill-sited garbage dump. LRI chose to waste them all.

Following U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan's 1997 decision upholding the Army Corps of Engineers' denial of a wetlands filing permit, county officials finally began adjusting to the long-haul alternative, LRI continued wasting this further opportunity to stop the folly and stem its losses. By persistent legal bullying LRI is demonstrating how baseless are its demands to be compensated for its own cumulative investment errors.

Can Pierce County's public servants now begin to see how unwise was the decision in 1977 (when Hidden Valley was sold to LRI) to entrust such a vital public service as waste disposal to a profit-seeking corporation? Maybe The News Tribune's editorial staff, at least, will finally overcome past myopia enough to see that serious objections to the dump cannot be forever trumped by insisting it's cheaper than long-haul.

WILLIAM R. CATTON Jr.; Lakewood