Eugene has a wetlands problem, no doubt about it. But the problem is not incapacitating. With luck, it will be solved to the benefit of all parties. Ironically, the chief impediment at the moment is a federal agency charged with protecting wetlands.

Consider a sad story:

In 1979, Spectra-Physics Inc., a California corporation, delighted Eugene by building a plant on the west side of town. The company stepped carefully through all of the regulatory hoops of all levels of government. Among other things, it obtained a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill a portion of its 32-acre site that was in a floodway.

About two years ago, the company started thinking about expanding its site. In the meantime, the city had become aware of federal regulations protecting wetlands, promulgated in the early 1980s. Federal maps showed some of these lands to be in west Eugene, earmarked for industrial development -- including the Spectra-Physics site.

The city helped the company prepare an application to add to its site, accompanied by mitigation -- the creation of new wetlands to replace those being filled. Late last year, the Environmental Protection Agency not only rejected that plan but said the company's original construction failed to comply with the law and must be brought into conformance -- presumably by mitigation.

Creating new wetlands can cost up to $10,000 an acre, over and above the price of the ground. If Spectra-Physics does this for the 20 acres it filled in 1979, the cost could run between $500,000 and $1 million.

Local officials have strongly objected to the unfairness. After all, the company did everything it was told to do in 1979. Federal maps clearly showing that it was building on wetlands were not even available until 1983. Why not just grant the company a good-faith exception for past work and concentrate on future additions?

So far, EPA has said no. It does not accuse the company of willful violation, but it insists on treating the case as though the company were submitting a request for its original fill.

If the agency applied a similar screen to all development activity on Oregon wetlands prior to, say, 1980, it could undoubtedyly have a field day. It does not intend to do that. But if not, why pick on this particular company in this particular town?

That's what 4th District Congressman Peter DeFazio was getting at when he questioned EPA Adminstrator William Reilly at a congressional hearing last week. Reilly seemed taken aback by the idea of retroactive permit enforcement. Perhaps his own inquiries will soften the attitude of his agency's regional office.

We hope so, not just out of sympathy for Spectra-Physics. The larger concern is that Eugene is embarked on a major study of its wetlands. It has voluntarily identified more land than was shown on federal maps. And, through contracts with the Lane Council of Governments, it is doing a thorough study.

The goal is to produce a plan showing which lands should be preserved intact and which might be subject to development, with mitigation.

Once a plan is in place, it should be possible for a future Spectra-Physics to come in and build without going through its own elaborate permit process. And once permissible uses of the west Eugene industrial area are pinned down, the metropolitan jurisdictions can decide whether they need to compensate by bringing more industrially zoned land within the urban growth boundary.

Producing a plan will require cooperation between the city, the county, the state and several federal agencies, as well as private landowners. The prospects for achieving the necessary level of cooperation would look good today -- if it were not for the unsettling Spectra-Physics experience.