EDITORIAL\DreamWorks' nightmare\Environmental lawsuit attacking studio project is without merit.

A lawsuit attacking the proposed DreamWorks SKG studio near Marina del Rey bears all the traits of frivolous environmental litigation.

The suit filed last week claims more environmental studies are needed before the studio plan advances. But DreamWorks, the entertainment conglomerate formed by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, is proposing a 100-acre development on already well-trod land.

For decades, Howard Hughes used the property as an industrial site. It had airplane hangars, paved runways and other facilities.

DreamWorks is just one part of the larger 1,087-acre Playa Vista development, stretching from the San Diego Freeway to the Pacific Ocean along Jefferson Boulevard. It already has been subject to intense environmental scrutiny, and its developer, Maguire Thomas Partners, already has jumped through hoops for local planners.

For example, Maguire Thomas Partners has agreed to expand the coastal wetlands at the site from 170 acres to more than 285 acres.

That concession - an acknowledgement of the wetlands as a wintering area and migratory stopover for many species of birds - and other developer commitments have resulted in strong support for the development from Friends of Ballona Wetlands, an environmental organization that has been monitoring the region for many years in hopes of preserving ecologically sensitive areas.

In addition, the City Council still has a voice about whether additional environmental studies should be conducted once DreamWorks submits a specific plan for its sound stages, office buildings and supporting facilities.

In all, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the merit of a new lawsuit challenging the studio on environmental grounds.

The critics contend, among other things, that DreamWorks will occupy property that technically are still wetlands. But L.A. officials say the studio will not intrude on the acreage already set aside for expanded wetlands, which are more than a mile from the DreamWorks site.

It's also hard to take seriously the critics' complaints that a delay is needed for renewed environmental study on the grounds that a studio will create more vehicle traffic and helicopter flights than were anticipated when developers believed the property would be used for office buildings.

It's important to remember that this is L.A. we're talking about, not the middle of Montana.

L.A. needs more good jobs, and new jobs typically require some construction and development. DreamWorks alone will have 1,400 workers, and its multimedia facilities will involve between 7,000 and 10,000 workers, depending on whose estimates you use.

While we're sensitive to genuine environmental concerns, it's not too much to hope that this lawsuit will be set aside before it throws a monkey wrench in a worthwhile project.

There's no apparent need for more environmental studies now, and there's always a danger in this kind of case that the project could be held up by nothing more than a technical error by a report writer.

More importantly, this is precisely the sort of thing that sends a wrong message at a time when Los Angeles is trying to be more friendly to business.