EDITORIAL RECYCLED NONSENSE DWP BUNGLERS BLOCK VALLEY BUSWAY'S PATH.

AFTER so many years and so many expectations, work on the east-west busway through the San Fernando Valley has finally started.

Railway tracks have been torn up and trees removed. And soon intersections will be torn up and concrete poured. The light at the end of the project - a car-free Metro Rapidway from North Hollywood to Warner Center - has peeked through the political haze.

But bungling by the city Department of Water and Power in its pet undertaking - to do something with recycled toilet and sewer water - may set back construction of the 14-mile route of the bus rapidway.

There's just no justification for the delay.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority has been planning the Rapidway for eons, with completion set for 2005.

Suddenly the DWP wizards awoke from their sleep and realized they can't build a pipeline under the busway, from the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Sepulveda, without some planning and engineering.

DWP officials guessed that piggybacking their recycled-water plan on the busway would cost $30 million.

Having been foiled by outraged Valley residents in their toilet-to-tap plan several years ago, DWP officials figure they could keep their options open for the future by using the recycled water for landscaping and other nondrinking needs for Pierce College, local golf courses and other similar uses.

MTA had no objections, nor did the community.

But the contractor already hired to build the busway did. He put the price tag at $60 million, because everything would have to be re-engineered and a whole new timetable put in place.

Ever indifferent to the Valley, DWP officials said, ``Wait.''

No thought to how a delay might affect traffic-weary residents and workers. No thought to whether it might hurt the MTA's $330 million mass-transit project.

MTA officials say they won't delay the project for the nine months the DWP wants (which we all know means twice that in real time) and are reluctant to do so now they are finally on the home stretch.

After all, the DWP had 20 years to chew over the busway plans and a year to get involved in the actual start of construction.

But the idea of getting a good deal on water for its landscaping might sway the board when it votes on the DWP's request (which was sweetened with $5 million) next week.

To do that would mean selling out the people, who too often are the last consideration of government.

Just say no.

When it comes to transit improvement, Valley residents have been left dangling in the wind long enough.