Effort to Reopen Study of Airport Sites Gaining

As county officials prepare to decide on the controversial expansion of John Wayne Airport, an even more explosive political issue--the designation of a site for a new airport within Orange County --quietly has been gathering force.

Though county supervisors twice have declared that there is no other potential airport site within Orange County’s borders, a growing network of business and political interests has been working--in public forums and behind closed office doors--to open the question once again.

Officials from Newport Beach, the city most affected by jet noise from John Wayne, and a number of influential business leaders are mounting an intensive lobbying effort to persuade the supervisors to look at other options for a limited-scale airport within the county.

Publicly, they say the options for a site are wide open. To zero in on a site before the board’s vote Wednesday on the John Wayne Airport expansion plan could send hundreds of irate residents from communities near any such site streaming to the board meeting to foreclose renewal of a site search, some Newport Beach officials conceded.

Privately, however, much of the most intense attention and debate in recent months has focused on potential commercial use of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, controversial not only because of the Marine Corps’ opposition but also because of its potential impact on residents of Irvine and the Saddleback Valley.

The city of Newport Beach within the past year hired several consultants to look at the feasibility of converting the Marine base to a civilian airport and came up with a report that concluded it could be an attractive option. The report was initially available as a slide show, but former Mayor Evelyn Hart said, “We haven’t shown it because it doesn’t do us any good to show it. It just makes the city of Irvine all nervous.”

Moreover, rumors have been circulating for weeks that the Irvine Co., a major landowner in the area around the base, is considering a new lobbying effort in Washington, D.C., to persuade the Pentagon to allow commercial use of El Toro.

Though the company vigorously denies the reports--which could not be independently confirmed through federal officials--a number of local city officials and airport activists said they understand the company is interested in promoting the issue.

“They (the company) may have been asked to get involved in Washington, not by us, but by certain people. That’s all I can say,” said Hart.

‘An Awkward Position’

One supervisor’s aide, who asked not to be identified, said the company is “in an awkward position. They’re stuck between two jurisdictions (Newport Beach and El Toro) with differing points of view on El Toro, and that puts them in a difficult position. . . . But they think that if there’s going to be an opportunity to do anything in this regard, it has to be done now, while Reagan’s in the White House and while the county is moving in the airport area. So if anything’s going to be done, it has to be done pretty quick.”

Said a Newport Beach official: “All indications from them are they are very anxious to relieve the residents of Irvine of those abysmally noisy military jets. . . . They (said) flat out they wanted El Toro, and they’re going to go all out to get it.”

Peter Herman, aide to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, said Irvine Co. President Thomas F. Nielsen told him several weeks ago that the company has undertaken a study of land development options around the Marine base in the event it was converted to commercial use. But company spokesman Jerry Collins said Friday: “If there is such a study, it’s in the what-if category. It’s an exercise in toying around and has no relationship to what may or may not actually happen.”

Consultant Hired

Company officials did concede that they have hired a consultant who helped prepare Newport Beach’s airport studies, Walter Gilfillan, to advise them on “aviation matters.”

But Robert Shelton, a former Irvine Co. vice president who is now a senior consultant on governmental relations, said the company has done no lobbying on the El Toro issue.

“There’s no question there are a lot of people interested in the destiny of El Toro, but the Irvine Co. has not been actively endeavoring in Washington to change the situation of the El Toro base,” he said. “Our position is we’re going to be involved in one thing at a time. We’re interested in what the John Wayne solution is going to be, and you know, first things first. We have watched the debate over alternatives, but we are not committed to any alternative beyond the importance of early development and improvement of John Wayne to a reasonable standard.”

Shelton said, however, that a number of others have begun “making inquiries” about El Toro in Washington, including Newport Beach city officials, the Airport Working Group, which is a coalition of homeowner organizations in Newport Beach, and California’s former director of aeronautics, Mark Mispagel. Mispagel could not be reached for comment Friday.

“I don’t want to be misleading,” Shelton added. “We’re certainly interested. But that doesn’t mean we’re going after it.”

Palmdale Possibility Another development in the El Toro situation during the past year has been interest in moving the Marines to property owned by the Los Angeles Department of Airports in Palmdale, freeing El Toro for commercial use.

Henry Wedaa, chairman of the Southern California Assn. of Government’s aviation work committee, said this week, “I understand that there are some kind of informal discussions going on relative to the Marines trading El Toro for Palmdale. . . . It’s a trial balloon, you might say.”

Wedaa said the idea would be to promote development of a limited commercial airport in Palmdale, with a military air facility as well, in place of the large, regional facility that has been proposed for the location over the years but opposed by the military and local residents. A new regional airport authority now in the formation stages “may well be able to expedite the discussions of an El Toro-Palmdale swap,” added Wedaa, who is a Yorba Linda city councilman.

Col. Jerry Shelton of El Toro said he had heard nothing of renewed discussions of commercial use of the facility but learned of discussions of the Palmdale proposal several days ago.

“At this point, the Department of Defense and the Marine Corps have no intentions whatsoever of relinquishing El Toro,” he said.

‘Best of Relations’ Of reports about the Irvine Co., he said, “As far as I know, we’ve always had the best of relations with the Irvine Co., and I certainly know of nothing along those lines.”

Former Rep. Jerry Patterson, whom the Irvine Co. supported in his recent unsuccessful campaign against Republican Robert Dornan, said “there’s been more talk” lately about civilian use of El Toro, but he said he had never been approached on the matter by company lobbyists. “I have only heard that there has been renewed interest in it,” said Patterson, who is now with a law firm in Beverly Hills and Washington, D.C.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) said he had also not been approached on the matter. “I simply do not see (commercial) use of El Toro looming as a possibility in the near future,” he added. “I have no information that would change the position the military’s taken in the past, and that is they’re not interested in even entertaining the idea.”

Newport Beach’s study of commercial use of El Toro found what the city said were a number of advantages, particularly in lowering the noise level from that airport. “Replacing noisy military aircraft with quieter civilian aircraft and controlling civilian use will decrease noise dramatically,” the study found.

About 12 square miles that is not now buildable would become suitable for residential development, the study concluded. The study also shows a proposed new El Toro terminal on Irvine Co. property.

Takeoff Pattern Suggested

Moreover, the city’s study suggests a takeoff pattern that would alleviate many historic objections to civilian use of El Toro by routing jets on most days north of Mission Viejo and over Plano Trabuco in the foothills. Landings would pass over Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills.

However, Ken Delino, executive assistant to the city manager, emphasized that while Newport Beach strongly advocates a search for a new airport site, the city does not lean toward El Toro. In fact, Bell Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains may be an ideal candidate site, he said.

The Irvine Co. has not joined the chorus of corporations that in recent weeks have asked the Board of Supervisors to renew its search for a new airport site. Supervisor Roger Stanton said he met with several Irvine Co. officials last week and they told him it would be a “conflict of interest” for them to take such a position.

However, the company did circulate a letter to county supervisors advocating a reduction in the size of the new terminal proposed in the master plan for John Wayne Airport. The company also expressed concerns over traffic impacts on roads near the airport if the master plan is implemented.