Foes Vow Suit to Block Airport at El Toro Base

Opponents of a proposed airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station vowed Thursday to file legal action to block the project, but airport supporters and even environmental law attorneys said chances are slim a lawsuit could kill the project outright.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday endorsed the development of an airport at El Toro when the military leaves the 4,700-acre base in mid-1999, despite fierce opposition from south county residents who live near the proposed airport and under its flight paths.

“I would say chances are good, substantially more than 50%, that we can put a stop to this thing,” said former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, head of the anti-airport group Project ‘99, which met Thursday to discuss challenging the airport on the grounds that it will harm the environment. The group includes lawyers, staffers from several south county cities and other activist groups.

But some say that if history is any indication, a lawsuit will mean that the case will drag out in court, cost millions in legal fees and ultimately fail to stop construction of the airport.

Anthony Willett, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, said the agency does not know of any case in which a community succeeded in blocking the conversion of a military base to an airport by initiating legislation or filing a lawsuit.

Stephen A. Alterman, president and general counsel for the Washington-based Air Freight Assn., said that stopping an airport “on legal grounds alone is a very difficult task.”

Part of the problem is that state environmental law rarely carries the power to kill a project outright, said Michael D. Fitts, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles.

Instead, the laws largely require the developer to fully disclose a project’s problems in environmental impact reports. Even in cases where such information is overlooked, judges merely instruct the developer to change the report.

“But there is little chance of standing in its way,” Fitts said.

He ought to know. He tried to use environmental law to block the the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor toll road that today, in his words, “has ripped the guts” out of once pristine open space in south county.

Judges are often deferential to the government entities behind such projects--be it a dam, a toll road or an airport, said Jody Freeman, an acting environmental law professor at UCLA. So while a case may be tied up in court for years, the developer typically wins, she said.

“With these types of cases, often you’ll get delay,” Freeman said. “Less often you get actual blocking of the project.”

San Francisco attorney Richard Jacobs, who represents cities in southern Orange County, said opponents may find relief in federal legislation, arguing that the airport would harm endangered species or violate clean air laws.

The driving force behind the airport was Measure A, a ballot initiative that Orange County voters narrowly passed in 1994, which changed the county’s master plan and allowed an airport to be developed. The measure was upheld in another public vote this year.

On Wednesday, the supervisors voted 4 to 1 to adopt an environmental impact report that portrayed a commercial airport as the best use of the military base. The report envisioned an airport serving 38.3 million passengers a year and rivaling Los Angeles International Airport for cargo service.

In a concession to south county residents living near the base, supervisors scaled back a commercial airport at El Toro to serve a maximum 25 million annual passengers, and said they would pursue a ban on night flights and take other steps to lessen the airport’s negative impacts.

But south county opponents say the offer is hardly generous. They believe that the supervisors will promise anything in their quest to build an airport at El Toro to satisfy business and tourism interests.

“If there was an airport at El Toro, it would be just a matter of time before the Board of Supervisors authorized a new expansion,” Agran said. “They tout this as a concession, but it’s a charade.”

Far from a final decision, the Board of Supervisors’ vote moves forward a process that requires a new round of environmental reports and another board vote before an airport at El Toro is constructed.

But opponents said they have no time to waste. By law, they must file a challenge to the environmental impact report within 30 days of the board’s approval of the weighty document, which is several dozen volumes thick.

Critics said they will contest the validity of the document. They believe that it fails to address the airport’s negative effects on a host of issues, including noise, pollution, traffic and wildlife. An 800-acre wildlife reserve is at the end of one runway.