With regard to the Spectra-Physics wetlands problem, two things seem clear: The city should share in the cost of a solution. But it should not pay for its share by creating another urban renewal district and using tax increment financing.

There is general agreement on the first point and considerable disagreement about the second.

Spectra-Physics built its present plant in west Eugene In 1979. In 1987, it approached the city about the possibility of expanding. By then, the city had learned that the Spectra-Physics site is in what the federal government considers a wetlands area.

Thus, an application for the necessary expansion permits was prepared, including a plan of mitigation (creation of new wetlands nearby) for the wetlands that would be destroyed by development. The Environmental Protection Agency said fine, but you'll also need to provide mitigation for the original construction project.

That continues to strike us as unfair. Neither the company nor the city knew that the original site was in a wetlands area when the plant was built, and no federal agency provided that information at the time.

Nonetheless, the company has chosen to deal with the problem through cooperation rather than confrontation. It has prepared a plan that would mitigate both its past and future development. The plan will involve creating 27.4 acres of wetlands northwest of the Spectra-Physics property along the Amazon Channel, at an estimated cost of $652,000.

The Oregon Department of Economic Development has agreed to put up a third of the cost and the City Council voted unanimously last week to do the same, leaving the company with a bill for only $217,000. That's fair.

But the city staff has proposed that the council raise its share of the money by creating a renewal district surrounding the site. Property taxes from the Spectra-Physics expansions would be captured not only for the city's share of mitigation but for nearby street extensions, bike path construction and the provision of amenities in the "environmental park" that might be created in the new wetlands.

This is a bad idea. The city's main urban renewal project, aimed at the revitalization of downtown, is already under strong attack. As one consequence, an update of the downtown renewal plan approved by the council has been referred to the voters by petition. The measure will be on the May primary election ballot.

The city's main urban renewal project... is already under strong attack.

If the city wants to maintain public support for the renewal projects that already exist - downtown and the Riverfront Research Park -- it had best not sprinkle new ones around indiscriminately. Tax increment financing is a special device to be used for limited purposes, not for every spot of new development.

The staff estimates that Spectra-Physics' expansions will produce $1.2 million in property taxes in the eight years between 1993 and 2000. That's highly speculative. It assumes the construction of a $2 million building at first and a $6 million building by 1997, for which the timing is uncertain.

Even if the revenue estimates prove accurate, however, the taxes will be needed to provide the company's share of support for schools, fire and police protection and all the other standard services for which urban property tax dollars go -- except when confined to a renewal district.

The expansions are expected to double and perhaps even triple the Spectra-Physics payroll of 500. That's great. Everyone's for more jobs. But the increased work force will furnish all the more reason to apply the company's property taxes to the full range of services that the company and its workers use, not just infrastructure for its own neighborhood.