Sandag Report Dismisses Airport Alternatives : Transportation: TwinPorts foes assail study for eliminating sites because of land-use plans, saying those problems also plague the Otay Mesa location.

It was billed as an information-only item at the San Diego Assn. of Government’s Friday meeting, but a staff report on 16 suggested airport locations in San Diego County drew heated opposition from South Bay politicians, who called the report incomplete and misleading.

The report, which focused on 16 “alternative” locations outside of Otay Mesa, determined that there are no ideal sites elsewhere in the county for a commercial airport to complement Lindbergh Field, the city’s downtown airport.

The report determined that the Miramar Naval Air Station, Camp Pendleton, Rincon, Carmel Valley and McClellan-Palomar Airport were technically suited for a major airport with a 12,000-foot runway and the ability to accommodate 25 million passengers annually. The other 11 suggested sites failed to meet technical requirements.

But Sandag’s staff said those five locations aren’t suitable because an airport would clash with local land-use plans. The report did not rate the highly publicized TwinPorts plan that would create a binational airport straddling the Otay Mesa-Tijuana border.

Chula Vista Mayor Tim Nader, who called the study “idiotic,” made public a letter from a federal Fish and Wildlife Service official who noted that TwinPorts is proposed for land that is home to six federally listed endangered species and 48 species that are candidates for listing as endangered or threatened.

San Diego Councilman Bob Filner, who ardently opposes construction of an airport in the South Bay, charged that the report’s conclusion “was designed for the sole purpose of shoving an airport down the South Bay’s throat.”

Filner, whose district includes incorporated portions of Otay Mesa, said data in the report actually suggests that the five technically acceptable sites are superior to the Otay Mesa site. Filner called the report’s conclusion “a sham . . . the report actually says that five of the sixteen sites are technically feasible.”

Filner and Nader complained that Sandag’s staff unfairly knocked five potential sites out of the running by noting that local land-use regulations would prohibit a major airfield. “The Otay Mesa site, which is also inconsistent with these same land-use policies, is the No. 1 site in Sandag’s view,” Nader said. Sandag staff members said they were directed by the board only to study sites other than Otay Mesa.

Filner also suggested that the San Diego City Council’s support for the Otay Mesa site might fall apart following the recent election of Valerie Stallings and George Stevens. In a 6-3 vote this past spring, the City Council designated the TwinPorts concept as its preferred long-range airport option.

However, Councilman Ron Roberts, the chief proponent of an Otay Mesa airport, “is not at all concerned about the level of council support” being eroded following the defeat of former councilmen Bruce Henderson and Wes Pratt, his spokesman said Friday.

San Diego County Supervisor Brian Bilbray, another staunch TwinPorts opponent, on Friday complained that the Sandag staff wrongly “came in with an assumption and developed that assumption” by gathering only that data which supports the South Bay location.

Bilbray knocked proponents of continuing binational negotiations who are attempting to gain support from Mexican government officials for construction of TwinPorts.

Bilbray suggested that the binational negotiations have fallen off track because “Mexico is (now) negotiating with us to get us to use their facilities” at Tijuana’s existing airport.

However, Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Andrea Korogi said Friday that the United States and Mexico are involved in “very serious negotiations” about security, land, on-ground transportation and other issues. The federal government in Mexico “is supporting those meetings,” Korogi said.