Selection Process for Airport Sites

I am a member of the Airport Site Coalition and attended every meeting for the past 20 months. I was shocked to read your article, “Norton AFB Emerges as Top Airport Site,” Nov. 19. Perhaps not more that 10% of those present suggested that Norton be kept on the list of sites still under consideration.

The facts are that Norton would create still more congested airspace and air traffic interfering in the airliner approach pattern to LAX; it’s no protected buffer zone. Within five years, it would be surrounded by residential housing and high-rise buildings--and plagued by “noise pollution” lawsuits in the hundreds of millions--just like those at LAX and the John Wayne airports. All these costs are placed on the taxpayer who is already tired of these same mistakes over and over again.

A shore-side ocean site has been suggested adjacent to the Las Pulgas off-ramp at Camp Pendleton. Access is needed from the Marine Corps to this 3,000-acre shore-side site situated halfway between Oceanside and San Clemente, this site provides a 10-mile buffer zone to the north, east and south, with the ocean on the west. With rail and freeway access already in place and centrally located to serve San Diego, Orange, Riverside and Imperial counties, it would provide the accommodations needed for an estimated 38 million passengers in the year 2010. It bids to be the safest, most convenient and least expensive of all the sites suggested.

This site could also afford major relief to the residents of Newport Beach who are now suffering stress from jet noise and fear of crashes into their residential neighborhoods.

The needs of 38 million American residents for a safe and convenient airport should not be denied.

OTTO C. KIESSIG

Laguna Hills