Legislators Push Camp Pendleton Airport Bill

Three state legislators are pushing a plan to allow Orange and three other counties to build and operate a new international airport somewhere in Southern California, possibly at Camp Pendleton.

Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-La Habra) will co-author a bill with Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-La Mesa) to allow Orange, San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties to join in a special regional agency to build the airport.

While the state Legislature cannot force the Marine Corps to accept a civilian airport, Bergeson and Peace said the military base would be a logical, central location for a new airport. But Marine Corps officials voiced displeasure with the idea Wednesday and vowed to fight such a plan.

The proposal comes at a time when Orange and Riverside county politicians fear that Los Angeles may try to force the construction of a new airport in Orange County or the Inland Empire, and as San Diego County officials struggle to deal with the overburdened Lindbergh Field near downtown San Diego.

“There has been a lot of discussion for some time about the need for a regional airport,” Bergeson said. “I just think that whatever happens, it’s important for the county to maintain a good deal of control as far as how and where a site is going to be developed.”

Bergeson said Camp Pendleton, with its freeway and rail access and its central, oceanfront location in northern San Diego County, would “have to be” among the sites considered.

Peace added that the military base was a “logical” choice and said an airport would be “but a blip” inside the huge (125,000-acre base). He envisions airline terminals built along Interstate 5, with a shuttle system to ferry passengers to an airfield on one of the base’s inland plateaus.

But Marine Corps officers said construction of a civilian airport at Pendleton would be impractical at best and would probably force the Marines to leave their West Coast training facility.

“Such an airport, with its extensive infrastructure and traffic patterns, would effectively terminate training and operations at Camp Pendleton, and the country would lose a valuable asset to the national defense,” said Lt. Col. John Shotwell, a Camp Pendleton spokesman. “We will take every measure necessary to prevent that from happening.”

Maj. Gen. Donald Miller, commander of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, which operates out of El Toro and Camp Pendleton, said neither base makes sense as the site for a civilian airport.

El Toro, he said, is surrounded by housing developments whose residents would never put up with an international airport in their midst. As for Camp Pendleton, he said, the Marines use “every square inch” for their military operations.

“You’ve got maneuvers, you’ve got jets bombing the ranges. I could give you a thousand reasons why that doesn’t make sense,” he said. “I sure wouldn’t be comfortable as an airline pilot with 365 people in a 767 flying into that terrain.”

Even if Camp Pendleton is ruled out, Bergeson said, the counties must start planning together now for a new airport.

“We’ve been living with the expansion of (John Wayne) airport for the past 25 years, and it long ago reached a saturation point of what it can handle,” she said. “It’s boxed in, with two major highways that would prevent it from expanding to meet the needs of the county. An additional airport has got to be located that will be accessible to the people in Orange and San Diego and Riverside counties.

“I think this is a good way to get some dialogue going, to make sure our interests are going to be protected,” Bergeson said.

Similarly, Peace said San Diego needs to unite with Orange County because “generations and generations” of politicians have talked about the need for a new San Diego airport. But neither San Diego County nor Orange County generates enough traffic by itself to warrant a new international airport, he said.

“As long as we confine the discussion to San Diego, it’s never going to get anywhere,” he said.

Peace, who has been working on the idea with San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding, said the bill would allow any two of the four counties to join a joint-powers agency that would consider such a regional airport. No county would be forced to participate, he added.