South County Airport Foes Attack, Circulate Petitions

Clutching a petition, Ilse Byrnes stepped hesitantly out of the bright afternoon sunshine into the cool darkness of the Swallows Inn, one of the city’s more colorful watering holes.

Not certain of her reception, Byrnes approached the knot of patrons huddled at the end of the well-worn bar.

Within seconds, though, she was the center of attention, as locals flocked around her to put their names on the three-page petition opposing the use of a site in the mountainous countryside near their homes for a regional airport.

“Can you believe it?” Barbara O’Donnell shouted to a friend over the sound of country music blaring from the jukebox. “They want to put an airport down here.”

“Just sign it,” O’Donnell, who was quickly converted, coaxed Louis Grijalva as he sipped a long-neck beer. He did.

The petition drive launched two weeks ago by the San Juan Capistrano City Council is part of an effort by community and business leaders and elected officials in South Orange County to block airport sites there as the time for a decision nears.

A public meeting is scheduled for 8 a.m. today at the University Club on the UC Irvine campus by the ad hoc group that listed South County as one site for an air facility that would relieve overcrowding at John Wayne Airport.

Meanwhile, officials in San Juan Capistrano, Mission Viejo, Dana Point and San Clemente have stepped up their attacks.

They argue that an airport in the uninhabited regions of South County between San Clemente and the Cleveland National Forest would devastate the rural environment, where thousands of campers, hikers and horseback riders enjoy a break from growing urban development.

They also complain that the proposed facility, which would bring 13 million airline passengers a year to the area, would create enormous traffic problems and spoil the relatively clean air.

The Airport Site Coalition, a private organization that was formed with county and federal approval in 1985, will complete its controversial, 20-month study of possible airport sites by next month.

After reviewing 31 locations in and out of Orange County, the coalition has settled on four sites, two of them in Orange County, and both of those in South County, according to Clarence J. Turner, the group’s vice president.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors will make the final decision based on the coalition’s recommendations, Turner added.

But South Orange County leaders say that before the board receives the coalition study, they will make certain that they send a loud and clear message.

“It is just totally inconceivable that anyone would think of putting an airport in one of the last undeveloped areas of Orange County,” Dana Point City Councilman Mike Eggers said this week. “It is environmentally unfeasible.”

Byrnes, who has collected more than 1,500 hundred signatures in the San Juan Capistrano area, hopes to double that amount by the end of the month. After that, the petitions will go to the Board of Supervisors.

“Almost everybody I talk to wants to sign,” she said.

The four potential sites are:

Potrero Los Pinos, a rural valley about 25 miles northeast of San Juan Capistrano on Ortega Highway; it is surrounded by campgrounds, a juvenile work camp and a nudist colony. It is part of the Cleveland National Forest and has been opposed by all mayors in South County and Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad),

Cristianitos Canyon, a hilly area that is less than two miles from San Clemente City Hall. The TRW Capistrano test site for space weapons is also in Cristianitos Canyon, and the proposed flight path would pass directly over the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

South Camp Pendleton, in San Diego County, five miles north of Oceanside near Las Pulgas Road. That site has also been opposed by Packard and the U.S. Marine Corps.

March Air Force Base in Riverside County, now an active Air Force installation that would include civilian use along with military under the proposal.

Cristianitos Canyon was dropped from serious consideration in July but was placed back on the list last week when coalition members decided against considering Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, Turner said.

That action enraged officials of San Clemente, Dana Point, Mission Viejo and San Juan Capistrano, as well as some merchants, environmentalists and slow-growth leaders, who claim that the coalition reneged on a promise not to recommend a site what would be so close to San Clemente and the nuclear power plant.

“The time (for protesting the two South County sites) is now,” said Michael Darnold, owner of the El Peon gift shop and co-chairman of the San Juan Capistrano Downtown Merchants Assn.

Turner said it is unlikely that any of the current top four sites will be dropped before the study is submitted to the Board of Supervisors.

“These sites make the most sense,” Turner said in an interview from his Costa Mesa real estate office.

“South County must realize that they are becoming a major section of the county,” Turner said. “They play a major role and have the fastest expansion. They, too, are contributing to the problem. They should contribute to the solution.”

Turner further angered South County officials recently when he sent letters asking for contributions to the financially strapped organization.

The Dana Point, San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano city councils refused to put the request to a vote, charging that the money spent so far--$678,000 from the Federal Aviation Adminstration and local private and public agencies--has been wasted.

Mission Viejo council members agreed to consider the request at their Monday night meeting and rejected it by a 3-1 vote.

Byrnes, a San Juan Capistrano resident for the last 21 years, said it does not make sense to invest money in a new airport, which would take more than a decade to build, when either of the desert bases, which have been slated for closing by the military, would be available.

“We are finally coming to the conclusion that recycling is good,” Byrnes said. “Why not recycle an airport and leave the environment alone?”