AQMD Cites Flaws in O.C.’s El Toro Report

Orange County’s claim that building one of the world’s largest airports at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station would reduce air pollution was questioned Wednesday by the agency responsible for regional air quality.

The growing demand for passenger and cargo flights in Southern California, which an El Toro airport would be designed to meet, would almost certainly bring increased airplane emissions, according to a planning manager for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The AQMD also challenged the environmental impact report for:

* Comparing anticipated pollution to current pollution from the base. The county should have compared a commercial airport to a dormant base, the AQMD said. Airport opponents said Wednesday the county has avoided doing that;

* Stating that toxic air emissions from military operations will cease, but failing to disclose whether future plans for the base will produce toxic emissions;

* Overlooking pollution from development projects that are likely to crop up around any reuse of the base; and

* Failing to outline enforcement measures to ensure that pollution will be lessened when possible.

AQMD planning manager Cindy S. Greenwald stressed that the concerns were not fatal flaws and praised the county’s report as “all in all, a pretty good document.” But the AQMD’s questions must be addressed as the planning moves forward, she said.

“There’s a need for several things to be cleaned up,” she said.

The AQMD’s comments come as the county prepares to finalize its draft environmental impact report, the single most important document shaping the fate of the base, which will be vacated by the military by mid-1999.

And so far, the reviews have been overwhelmingly negative. By Tuesday’s deadline, mounds of documents had been submitted skewering proposals to build either a passenger-cargo airport serving 38.3 million passengers a year or a cargo-general aviation airport at the base.

The safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn. also has warned that pilots intend to fight a proposal to have them take off to the east, a pattern the powerful union considers unsafe.

And at Wednesday’s first joint meeting of the three commissions making key recommendations on the base’s future, two members questioned whether the county had done its homework.

“I’m not sure we have adequate information to weigh the alternatives here,” said Planning Commissioner Thomas Moody.

Jack W. Rippy of the El Toro Citizens Advisory Commission, referring to problems raised by the pilots, urged county staff to “smoke ‘em out now” before the county winds up with an airport and runways that pilots won’t use.

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Kathleen Campini Chambers, a spokeswoman for the base reuse planning process, said Wednesday that all comments on the draft environmental impact report would be addressed in the final version. She said county staffers want time to study the comments by the AQMD and others before they can respond.

The AQMD’s Greenwald said she believes the county will have little problem addressing the agency’s concerns. But she said it is important that the report give people information they can use. For example, she said, comparing an airport to existing operations is “inappropriate,” she said.

“To compare something against what couldn’t be is not a valuable comparison for people,” Greenwald said. “You should compare it to ‘no project’ at the base, whatever that may be.”

The study also must recognize the potential for the number of flights in the region to increase overall, which would increase regional emissions, she said.

Critics say the revisions sought by the AQMD will force the county to confront what it was trying to hide: that an airport will pollute.

“These are very important issues,” said Laguna Niguel City Manager Tim Casey, whose city officially opposes the airport. “From my perspective, [the county] tried to take advantage of a situation when they tried to use the current military operations as a comparison.”

Some of the environmental impact issues are likely to wind up at the center of a legal challenge, Casey said.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote in early December on whether the base should become an airport or a site for non-aviation uses, such as homes, businesses, recreation, tourist attractions and a school.