I have been following the controversy about spartina grass with interest. I spent much of the summers of 1988-89 in Nahcotta at the Moby Dick Hotel, visiting friends and absorbing the atmosphere for a novel I hoped to write. (“Little Creatures Everywhere,” Doubleday, 1991).

I remember the spartina grass helping to frame the beauty of Willapa Bay. On a sunny day the effect of tall golden grass and blue water was stunning. The oysters were plentiful and delicious, and the family of herons who lived nearby thrived as they foraged for food along the flats. It seemed an ecological paradise to this transplanted New Yorker, and now I find that there is a movement to spray the spartina, which has supposedly become a potential threat to marine and animal life.

Of course, I am no scientist and claim no special knowledge of such issues, but it seems to me that something is wrong here. How can a grass that was considered useful and benevolent such a short time ago suddenly emerge as a villainous danger? The proponents of spraying tell us that the spartina was much less plentiful 15 years ago, but it was as abundant in the late 80s as it was in the mid-90s, when I returned on three successive autumns for a visit. Could this be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

Mary Bringle

New York City, N.Y.