For Edison there is another type of survival at stake. The company, already beleagured by tax problems with city, will take a major loss if it loses the MASCO institution's account. Edison is also jealous of the tax package MASCO may get it the deal goes through. That package would requred the institutions to pay about $1.1 million yearly, while Edison claims it would pay about $5 million in taxes on the delivered power.

Neither group buys the contention that Harvard has recently put fourth, that the housing cannot be built without the power plant. The developers claim that housing money is so tight that there are no funds for the complex to have its own steam boilers, so the power plant is a must.

Both groups will need all their current resources and more if the respect to beat Harvard and its MASCO. The University has the expertise to make an informed argument as to the benefits of its total energy power plant. And it has an depth plan which promises to supply the hospitals with power by 1978, the last year the institutions claim they can operate under the existing system. Although Edison has a joint plan that could do the same, it is apparent that the community groups challenging the Harvard MASCO plant would not take kindly to an Edison plan either.

ALTHOUGH IT is impossible to predict what will happen in the next few months on Mission Hill, several possibilities could occur. The BRA will probably hold as many community meetings as possible until it determines it can go ahead and hold a board meeting on the project without running headlong into violent community opposition. At that point, largely because the Mission Hill opposition lacks clout with City Hall in this highly political process, the BRA can in the long run give Harvard the go-ahead to break ground.

At that point several things could happen: Mission Hill residents may literaly strap themselves to the building, creating a visible, ugly, and graphic presentation of Harvard bulldozing over community people for all to see, This could cause a fierce political reaction and force the BRA or the medical institutions to back down and compromise.

The new environmental impact laws provide an excellent means for the opposition small or large, to defeat the project by tying it up in the courts. Edison has already gone on record saying it will file suit if MASCO receives its project approval. The battle may go on for so long that the institutions would again settle for compromise, It is odd that a decision to build or not to build should be settled in the courts, when judges have the least amount of expertise in terms of environmental danger. But the environmental laws give them that power.

Of course there is always the more than likely possibility that Harvard will win in court and the same lack of visibility that has haunted Mission Hill people in the past will plague them again. Harvard will then go ahead and build a power plant on top of anybody it want. But right now, the situation is hot enough and the opposition strong enough, to make Harvard's earlier statements about how there will be ground-breaking for the power plant in the next few weeks a very alight hope.