Norton AFB Emerges as Top Airport Site : Planning: After exhaustive search, panel says San Bernardino County site would be best choice to relieve congestion at John Wayne.

A decades-long search for a new regional airport site to serve travelers in 2010 moved closer to fruition Saturday as Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino emerged as the favorite among participants in a citizens’ task force.

But San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano residents opposed to plans for a medium-haul airport at either Potrero Los Pinos in Cleveland National Forest or Cristianitos Canyon were left in limbo. There was no decision to drop those sites from further consideration at Saturday’s meeting of the Airport Site Coalition at UC Irvine. About 125 people attended.

Seeking to meet at least some of Orange County’s projected air travel demand of 14 million passengers per year, the coalition recommended sites at March Air Force Base, South Camp Pendleton, Potrero Los Pinos, and Cristianitos Canyon in a report distributed at the session. But after discussion, Norton, which had been taken off the list, emerged as the front-runner.

“There appears to be very strong, firm support for Norton, and our report will reflect that,” said Al Bell, an urban planning consultant who directed the coalition’s airport search. “But as for the others, I don’t know how it comes out. It’s possible that some sites will stay in our report but with very strong, dissenting views.”

The dissenting statements would reflect significant public opposition to the Cristianitos site and possibly the Potrero location, both targets of residents’ petition drives and criticism from agencies including the San Onofre nuclear generating plant south of San Clemente and the U.S. Forest Service.

The Cristianitos site is owned by the Santa Margarita Co., which has indicated its willingness to consider an airport. But Sue Olson of the Forest Service told participants Saturday that the Potrero Los Pinos site is “not available” because an urban airport is not a proper use of forest resources.

Also, the military has said Camp Pendleton is off limits, and March Air Force Base may be a long shot as well because the Air Force is transferring operations from Norton to March. Norton is scheduled to be closed.

Saturday’s meeting was the last chance for people to participate in the Airport Site Coalition program after 20 months of similar meetings that explored 31 sites from Los Angeles Harbor to Carlsbad.

A final report is scheduled to go to the Orange County Board of Supervisors and the Federal Aviation Administration next month. It will include a proposal to create a public-private partnership to pursue development of at least one of the recommended sites.

The coalition was authorized by the Board of Supervisors to conduct a search for a site as part of a 1985 court settlement between the county, the city of Newport Beach and community organizations such as the Airport Working Group. The settlement sets a limit at John Wayne Airport of 8.4 million passengers annually through 2005. The heavily congested airport now serves about 4.75 million annually, with a $310-million expansion program under way. A new, $50-million passenger terminal is scheduled to open April 1.

Norton Air Force Base was high on the coalition’s list at its July meeting, but the coalition staff recently removed it from consideration because San Bernardino County officials are beginning to plan their own airport there. Bell said the staff did not want to duplicate what other agencies are doing.

Coalition participants, however, rejected the staff’s action and appeared to be almost unanimous Saturday in arguing that because Norton is already being planned as a civilian airport, it would be the best choice.

Norton would serve more than 6 million passengers annually, but only 4 million of those would be from Orange County. Its attractiveness depends largely on whether it will be served by rail transit.

The California-Nevada High Speed Rail Commission is planning such service, but faces major environmental and legislative hurdles.

The task force previously eliminated sites, including El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, because of intense public opposition or technical considerations, such as congested airspace.

Since the 1970s, various groups have searched for a site to relieve John Wayne Airport. The proposals have included Chino Hills, Santiago Canyon and the El Toro base. The Board of Supervisors, however, has twice adopted resolutions stating that there is no “viable” site for a new regional airport within the county’s borders.

The coalition has used an unusual consensus-building process. Anyone could attend the Site Consensus Team meetings over the past 20 months. San Clemente residents missed most of the early meetings and did not begin attending until the Cristianitos site scored high in technical rankings. And most North County residents dropped out after sites such as the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center were eliminated.

The coalition is a nonprofit organization of representatives from the Orange County Aviation Council, the Orange County Chamber of Commerce, the Industrial League of Orange County and the Airport Working Group.