It must have seemed strangely uncomplicated to Harvard officials when the tractor trailer slithered through Boston streets in darkness one morning this August. Carrying the last of six mammoth diesel engines from a South Boston warehouse where they had collected dust for five years, the trailer encountered a small group of Brookline and Mission Hill protestors as it entered Harvard's controversial Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP). There were some black balloons held by the sleepy-eyed outside. There were even two minor arrests. But by daylight, the last engine was behind the plant's gates; in a few hours, cranes had hoisted it in place. The seemingly endless haggling over the engines and their noxious emissions had--at least temporarily--ceased in time for lunch.

For three-and-a-half years, Harvard's lawyers and technical experts had wrestled with MATEP opponents over the cogeneration facility's stickiest question--whether the nitrous oxides emitted by the diesels would be at levels dangerous to residents' health. Hundreds of hours of testimony were given. Thousands of pages on the subject were compiled. And until last November, the courts and a state environmental agency had sided with Brookline and Mission Hill, requiring further controls and further delays. But between the hours of 2 a.m. and noon on Aug. 24, the final engine went to where Harvard had all along said it belonged.

The placement of the engines, which went with barely a hitch, suggests a significant change in the 12-year, $230 million saga of never-ending delays and escalating costs. Work is bustling in the engine room where "almost literally nothing was going on a month ago," according to a Harvard official. And the plant will be in full operation by August 1982, barring unforeseen installation and testing problems or court-ordered injunctions, David M. Rosen, director of governmental relations and Harvard's MATEP spokesman, says.

Two important court dates loom this fall--appeals of the regulatory decisions which cleared the way for the engines. But it appears as if the University's worst financial nightmare is in its closing episodes. The oft-interrupted dream of cost-and energy-efficient steam, chilled water and electricity service for the medical area is becoming more real.

With a court victory this October, Harvard will have gained final permission for start-up of the cogeneration plant, which will use engine exhaust to heat water, making steam and cutting fuel consumption. MATEP's results--rather than the arguments of Harvard's lawyers and experts--may soon be Harvard's response to residents claiming environmental danger and critics claiming fiscal irresponsibility.

Until last fall, the future of MATEP was cloudy. Since breaking ground in 1976, the plant, designed to provide the energy needs of 13 Harvard-affiliated hospitals and research institutions, met stiff, vocal community groups who feared for their lungs and lives. A series of decisions by the state Department of Environmental Quality Engineering (DEQE) had repeatedly stalled installation of MATEP's crucial engines--which are the vital link in the cogeneration process--sending the University in search of further pollution safeguards.

But last September, at "hot spot" hearings examining the potential impact of the plant's emissions at already heavily-trafficked areas, Harvard turned the regulatory tables, as the DEQE staff testified that under explicit operating guidelines the plant would be safe. DEQE Deputy Commissioner David Fierra, in response, approved the diesels in November under strict but livable conditions, which include monitoring systems and agreement to shut down if nitrous oxides in the area exceed state-set levels.

Fierra's approval set in motion a string of court victories and regulatory clearances that is still unbroken. After years of floundering, Harvard and MATEP have begun to look like winners. Following Fierra's decision, Harvard immediately set to work on hurdling the plant's last regulatory obstacle--approval from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)--which it did successfully, if not gracefully.

President Bok--who has rarely entered the MATEP arena--wrote Gov. Edward J. King in December seeking an exemption from the usual air quality protection procedure--called a "Prevention of Significant Deterioration" examination--required by the federal Clean Air Act of 1978. The Act exempts non-profit health or educational institutions upon the request of state governors. Bok wrote King that MATEP qualified as a non-profit facility and had already been scrutinized by a state environmental investigation much more stringent than the one EPA would conduct. King asked for the exemption in March. It was granted in May. And in June, a U.S. Appeal Court judge rejected a request from MATEP opponents for an injunction on the plant's completion, pending their October appeal of the EPA decision. In a matter of months, a bleak future had become very bright.

Harvard has agreed to keep the switches off until after the EPA question is resolved in court this October, but community groups opposed to the plant have not been mollified. The plant has cleared many hurdles, but not without stepping on what protestors consider some tenuous turf. They question the legal rationale behind the recent victories and trace the facility's newly-found success to backroom powerbroking.

Harvard has been throwing its political weight around and using the argument that its huge--and increasing--investment in the plant must be seen through to completion, the community groups say. "Harvard's made a mess of this. But they try to blame us and the state as obstructionists. Yet they were the ones that planned it poorly," Dr. John Hermos, co-chairman of the NOMATEP coalition, says.

The NOMATEP coalition, which claims to represent thousands of local residents and over 100 organizations, has fought construction of the plant from the beginning. And many of its members, like Brookline resident Charlotte Ploss, promise a continuing fight, despite MATEP's recent successes. "We can either stay and fight, or move. And I'm not moving," Ploss says.

The coalition is even confident of victory in the upcoming appeals of the EPA and DEQE decisions, although Ploss believes that "When you enter the courtroom, you enter Harvard's den." The coalition's lawyers contend that MATEP is not entitled to the status of a non-profit health or educational institution granted it by the EPA. "They created MATEP as a for-profit institution and now they wish to disregard that and have the plant considered part of Harvard. It's clear from the law that you can't," says Jerome Aaron, the attorney who will represent Mission Hill in the EPA appeal, which is scheduled to begin in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Oct. 9.

Harvard officials expect the appeals court to agree with the EPA's acting regional administrator, Leslie Carothers, who wrote in May that opponents were looking at MATEP's corporate composition "too narrowly." Carothers, the EPA official responsible for granting MATEP non-profit status, wrote in her decision that "Although the facility viewed in isolation is a power plant, not a school or hospital, its purpose is to provide the total energy requirements of...health care or educational institutions...MATEP should be viewed as a mere ancillary vehicle."

Little seems to have changed between Carothers' decision and now. Like last September, Harvard will enter the courtroom in October with the support of a major regulatory agency. In fact, this time the agency--the EPA--will do most of the fighting, as it defends the legitimacy of its own decision. Harvard will merely be "holding up their hands," a University lawyer says.