August 15, 1983

Like most ranchers, the people up Currant Creek would just as soon shoot a beaver as look at it. For years, the animals had dammed the stream, flooded their hay meadows and plugged their drainage culverts with mud and sticks. Then, two years ago, the Federal Government started trapping the beavers and setting them loose at a site below the ranches where the banks of the creek had been badly eroded. The beavers, using timber left at streamside by Government biologists, built a series of dams that slowed the swift creek, checking the erosion that had turned the water brown with mud and had killed much of the vegetation.

New York's loss during the three-day power failure in the garment district last week has, to some extent, been Atlanta's gain. Many apparel buyers who were unable to visit New York showrooms and place orders for the Christmas season have come to Atlanta. So have some manufacturers who had not planned to be here for the city's six-day ''holiday market week,'' which started Friday. The manufacturers lost sales opportunities in New York when a water- main break and an electrical fire last Wednesday blacked out a 12-block area of midtown Manhattan.

An Associated Press dispatch published Aug. 5, 1982, contained incorrect information on the incidence of a fatal blood disease near a plant in Aiken, S.C., where fuel for nuclear weapons is produced. A corrective article appears on page A12.

They were still in last place, and they were still 20 games below the .500 level, but the Mets sustained their August revival yesterday by defeating the Chicago Cubs, 5-2, for the 11th victory in their last 14 games and a sweep of the three-game weekend series. They did it with all kinds of flourishes before 17,551 fans in Shea Stadium: eight innings of five-hit pitching by Ed Lynch, another ninth-inning appearance and another ''save'' by Jesse Orosco and a grand slam by George Foster that ended most of the suspense in the third inning. ''They outplayed us all weekend,'' said Lee Elia, the manager of the Cubs. ''They beat the daylights out of us.''

Nobody complains about Canadian capellini or Mexican macaroni, but mention Italy to an American pasta maker and you are likely to get an al dente snarl. Imports of Italian pasta have risen fivefold in the last few years, while the increase in demand for American products has withered, the Americans say. The National Pasta Association, a trade group of American producers, said the increased imports are a result of illegal subsidies that allow the Italians to undersell their American competitors. The association filed suit last year with international trade authorities to end the subsidies.