Orange County Voices : COMMENTARY ON EL TORO : Let Irvine Co. Swap Farmland for Base, Then Wisely Develop It : Now that an agency has been formed, it’s time to formally kill the airport option and examine creative solutions.

It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t pretty, and too much valuable time was lost. But the Orange County Board of Supervisors deserves credit for finally putting together a new government authority to oversee the conversion of the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro.

Now the supervisors have an opportunity to get beyond the arguments about who decides; they can help us all to focus on what we’ll decide.

First, however, these veteran politicians are going to have to publicly acknowledge what they privately know to be true: As long as the proposal to convert the military base at El Toro into a commercial airport is the only plan we talk about, it will be impossible to develop a countywide consensus for the conversion and redevelopment of El Toro.

That’s because residents in southern and central Orange County understand that tens of thousands of commercial aircraft overflights every year will destroy their peace, quiet, property values and quality of life.

But it’s not enough to simply state that a commercial airport at El Toro is a bad idea. It’s time to start exploring some good alternative ideas. I think I’ve got one--a new proposal that’s worth putting on the table.

Here’s my idea: The 4,700-acre Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro is, of course, owned by the federal government. It is surrounded by thousands of acres of highly productive agricultural land owned by the Irvine Co. Why not arrange for a historic public-private land swap?

Under the terms of the swap, the Irvine Co. would deed thousands of acres of its agricultural land to the federal government. These magnificent lands would be placed in trust, ensuring that much of Orange County’s remaining agricultural open space would be permanently preserved, forever free of development. In exchange, the federal government would deed ownership of the El Toro base to the Irvine Co.

But the company would get more than ownership. It would also receive the federal funds earmarked for military base conversion, including the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to clean up the toxic wastes that now contaminate the soils and subsoils at El Toro.

Once the costly, labor-intensive cleanup task was underway, The Irvine Co. would have rights to develop the base, subject to two conditions: First, there could be no commercial airport development at El Toro--that would be a closed issue once and for all. Second, in its development of El Toro, the Irvine Co. would be expected to make use of the city of Irvine’s $125 million in state rail-bond funds to build an innovative monorail system that would serve the El Toro-Irvine area and later expand to other parts of Orange County.

What are the benefits of this kind of a land swap and development agreement?

* For the Irvine Co., the swap would be a chance to do what it does well--assert itself as the master developer of a large tract of land, mixing commercial, residential and industrial development. In this case, the development could take place within the broad guidelines of a federal/county/private agreement allowing for what amounts to a large-scale enterprise zone that promises unusual flexibility and profit.

Because the conversion of El Toro would involve the cleanup and restoration of land damaged by toxics, the Irvine Co. would not only have access to millions of dollars of cleanup funds, it would also find itself wearing the hat of environmental protector. In addition, the swap would permit the Irvine Co. to do what it soon has to do anyway--abandon its “neutrality” on the proposal to build a commercial airport at El Toro. Everyone knows that thousands of overflights from commercial air operations at El Toro would devastate Irvine, the world-famous planned community that bears the company’s name.

If the Irvine Co. were to stand by and let this happen, it might as well trade in its reputation as a “community builder” for a new sobriquet: “community buster.”

* For Orange County residents, the early redevelopment of El Toro (but not as an airport) will put many thousands of people to work. Thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians will be needed for the difficult work of cleaning up the toxic mess at El Toro.

Still more workers, with other special skills, will be needed to begin the design and construction of the Irvine monorail, which can be the first 15-mile link in an extended monorail or “fixed guideway” system that connects most of Orange County’s cities, including Mission Viejo, Irvine, Santa Ana and Anaheim.

Already the site of an Amtrak station, the Irvine-El Toro area is perfectly positioned to become a “National Center for Transportation and Environmental Excellence”--a place where thousands work on rail technologies that we first manufacture for our own use here in Orange County, then for sale throughout the country and even throughout the world.

The design and manufacture of modern rail systems can provide Southern California with the same kind of economic boom by 2000 that military and commercial aviation was providing in 1950.

* For the federal government, the El Toro/Irvine Co. land swap is a chance to produce a large-scale base conversion success story. It’s a chance to shut down military operations at El Toro by 1997, as originally planned.

But the shutdown will take place while a ready-to-go environmental cleanup and redevelopment plan is already underway. These arrangements can be part of a negotiated land swap that could take place as early as next year. The federal government, of course, would emerge with thousands of acres of orange groves and prime agricultural land--a revenue-producing resource but also a remarkable open-space resource for everyone who lives and works in Orange County or who visits here.

The government could declare these lands a “National Urban Agricultural Preserve,” maintaining current farming operations. Or, to effect military relocation costs, federal authorities could arrange for rapid resale of the agricultural lands. The resale could be part of a popular statewide or local bond issue, generating many millions of dollars in quick cash. It could also involve the American Farmland Trust or a similar private nonprofit entity that would oversee and manage the permanent agricultural operations.

* For high elected officials--most notably the five county supervisors, Rep. Christopher Cox (who represents Irvine and El Toro), and U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer--a land swap and early conversion of El Toro represents a chance to demonstrate some real leadership. But if these officials are to spare us many years of costly fighting over an airport, they’ll have to set aside their various shades of neutrality on the issue and take a stand.

Land swaps with the military aren’t new to Orange County. Small-scale swaps in the 1970s and 1980s were very successful.

So, what’s it going to be? A 15-year battle over an unneeded and unwanted commercial airport at El Toro? Or a large-scale, historic land swap that can quickly combine the dual benefits of open-space preservation and planned redevelopment?