EDITORIAL : RESERVOIR OF DOUBT; CHATSWORTH DESERVES MORE THAN THROWING AWAY THE KEY.

KIDS playing in the streets, dodging traffic, or hanging out at malls unsupervised, or just slumped in front of a TV set is the best the city of Los Angeles has to offer our children.

That seems to be the message after more than a year of fruitless studies and thumb-sucking by the Department of Water and Power regarding its vast and splendid property - the Chatsworth Reservoir.

DWP Commission Chairman Rick Caruso stalled as long as he could before surrendering without a public fight to those who want to protect the clear, green sight lines in their back yards, who want to keep the land off-limits to anything beneficial or useful to the greater San Fernando Valley, its residents, its children or the city as a whole.

The 1,300-acre site offers beautiful vistas of grassland and the Valley and provides a home to wildlife. All that should be - and can be - preserved and still meet the needs of thousands of underserved people.

The argument that the reservoir should be ``preserved as is'' misses a rare opportunity to turn a vast vacant lot that is fenced off and guarded to prevent public use into something of true beauty and worth.

As is, the site has been a modest educational opportunity for a handful of school kids who get to visit the area on rare occasions.

The DWP recommendation might someday increase the abandoned reservoir's use through expanded guided tours.

But it has the potential - in the right hands and with the right and appropriate plan - to be so much more.

A nature preserve and an educational center, a wildlife preserve and hiking trails, maybe even camping for inner-city kids, a few sports fields in discreet corners - what's wrong with any of that?

Nature and parks, playing fields and bird sanctuaries can peacefully coexist on adjacent space. The Sepulveda Basin is a perfect example. The Wildlife Reserve area is vast enough to accommodate both groups without either intruding on the other.

It is hard to fathom that anyone would begrudge children a chance to play in a supervised setting on a small portion of the site that is not intrusive to the residents and that affords children more safe places to gather.

On Tuesday, the DWP commission delayed making a decision until September, to give area residents and interested parties a chance to make presentations on what to do with the reservoir.

We urge area residents, youth and sports groups, wildlife groups, schools, historical societies, homeowner groups, and the civic and political leaders of the whole Valley to come together in a meeting of the minds of the needs and the opportunities that the Chatsworth Reservoir offers.

This land belongs to all of Los Angeles, not to just one neighborhood.