1 County Site Chosen in Search for New Airport

A site-selection group chose three potential locations for a new regional airport Saturday, and only one--in the Cleveland National Forest northeast of San Juan Capistrano--was in Orange County.

Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino and south Camp Pendleton in north San Diego County were the other two sites that emerged Saturday as finalists in the hunt for a new site to supplement overcrowded John Wayne Airport.

The list of potential airport locations was narrowed from 11 by the Airport Site Coalition, a group sanctioned by the Orange County Board of Supervisors and aided by professional planning consultants.

Although many previous studies of airport sites have been filed over the years, a new search was required under terms of a 1985 court settlement between the supervisors and the city of Newport Beach over the planned expansion of John Wayne Airport.

The supervisors are not required to adopt the group’s final recommendation or choose any airport site. However, Coalition President Leland Oliver said Saturday that the group will work to build political pressure on behalf of its final recommendation.

The Orange County site, Potrero Los Pinos--a plateau off of Ortega Highway--was ranked high for possible use as either a major long-haul passenger facility or a smaller, medium-size airport, serving 15.4 million to 17.5 million passengers per year. Capital costs for such a project would range from $4.32 billion to $6.06 billion, officials estimate, and the airport would serve up to 69% of the county’s unmet market demand for air carrier service.

John Wayne Airport now serves a maximum of 4.75 million passengers per year, with a new ceiling of 8.4 million to be served when the new airport terminal and parking garages are completed.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, in whose district the airport would be built, has already said he would oppose development of Potrero Los Pinos as an airport for environmental reasons. The site would have to be acquired from the federal government in some sort of land swap, officials say, and then graded.

About 187 million to 275 million cubic yards of dirt and rock would have to be cut and filled at the Potrero site, studies show.

Additional technical studies of top sites are scheduled, with a final recommendation due by the end of the year.

Among the sites dropped from consideration Saturday was El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, much the focus of earlier studies. The coalition’s staff concluded that selection of the military base would face significant political opposition and that there would be major costs in relocating military operations elsewhere.

Meeting at the Fluor Daniel building in Irvine, the gathering of more than 100 people from throughout Orange County was split on a staff-recommended list of back-up sites, in case Potrero Los Pinos, Norton Air Force Base or south Camp Pendleton all prove unfeasible. The staff listed as backups:

* Cristianitos Canyon near San Clemente.

* Huntington Flats, a sea bed about 1 mile off of Seal Beach.

* Los Angeles Harbor

* March Air Force Base in Riverside County.

* Palomar Airport in San Diego County.

The Coalition, funded partly by $795,000 in federal grants and $235,000 in local money, uses an experimental “consensus-building” technique in which anyone can come to the semimonthly meetings, sit at a table where airport issues such as noise and traffic are thrashed out, and then watch a “team” captain from each table report to the entire gathering.

Many team captains said that Cristianitos Canyon should be dropped from consideration, partly in response to a major lobbying effort by San Clemente officials and concerns about pilots’ ability to make an immediate left turn, required to reduce noise over residential areas.