Local News in Brief : Countywide : Airport Search Groups Get $378,000 From FAA

Two county community groups seeking a place for a new regional airport have won a large chunk of federal money to help pay for their work, it was announced Thursday.

The $150,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration was awarded to the Airport Site Coalition by the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said Al Bell, the coalition’s executive director.

Another $228,000 will follow next year, Bell said. The coalition--whose members include the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, the Industrial League of Orange County, the Orange County Aviation Council and the Airport Working Group--has no preferred site, Bell said.

Another group interested in a new regional airport site, the Inter-County Airport Authority, received a separate $50,000 award through SCAG, said its executive director, Ken Delino.

The authority, a joint-powers agency formed 11 years ago by Santa Ana, Anaheim, Garden Grove and Stanton, and recently joined by Newport Beach, prefers El Toro Marine Corps Air Station as “the most feasible and quickest solution” for an airport site, Delino said. “The FAA has already spent $5 million to $7 million on studies, and they all point back to El Toro.”

But he added that the group would also help SCAG in evaluating alternative sites.

Bell said that the coalition, formed in 1986, prefers to reach a public consensus before recommending a site and that possible locations would not be limited to Orange County. The group’s first public meeting is scheduled May 21, he said.