O.C. Airport Neighbors Give Advice on Noise

When folks living near the end of John Wayne Airport’s runways want to know which way the wind is blowing, they can tell just by sitting in their living rooms, listening.

“They’re blowing the opposite way this week. That pilot is warming up at the airport, he’s sitting on the ground, but he’s going up the other way,” said Judy Bryant, in her Pegasus Drive living room. “Last week was totally reverse, they were flying in low from the other side.”

Bryant and hundreds of other residents in Santa Ana Heights--tucked right next to the airport, and under the flight path of up to 73 flights a day--have adapted to decades of zooming, whining, and sometimes deafening racket. They’ve got plenty of advice about the weather, lawsuits, and everything else for their neighbors to the south near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which may be on its way to becoming an international airport after the Board of Supervisors this month approved a key environmental report.

“Turn up the TV,” said Justin Tag, 14.

“Sometimes talking to a lady on the phone can be rough,” added his friend, Steve McCarthy, 15.

“Grin and bear it,” said Peter Andrews, of Redlands Street. “And insulate. Get them to give you an acoustic abatement program.”

Andrews and his wife are two of about 125 residents of this unincorporated area who have taken advantage of the Orange County Acoustical Insulation Program. Before they moved to their comfortable five-bedroom home in 1964, they contacted the county Planning Commission and asked if there were any plans for commercial operations at the airport.

“They told us, ‘No, you don’t have to worry about a thing,’ ” Andrews said.

Within a few years, commercial flights started. Over the next two decades, the airport expanded again and again. Andrews and other neighbors attended public hearings, signed petitions and lost three lawsuits. Several sold their homes to the county and moved. The Andrews family stayed, and adapted. In 1990, they took the county’s offer to try to provide them some peace and quiet.

“We never would have had air-conditioning without it, I’ll tell you that,” Andrews said.

Begun in 1985, but discontinued because of bankruptcy proceedings 18 months ago, the program is now back in operation, providing up to $38,500 per home for improvements designed to stifle noise.

Noise Abatement Plan Not Being Considered

The program, funded by the Orange County Development Authority and the Federal Communications Commission, is not currently envisioned for any communities near the proposed El Toro airport, according to Kathleen Campini Chambers, a spokeswoman for both John Wayne Airport and the El Toro project.

For one thing, the number and area of residences potentially affected would be much smaller, and a buffer zone of vacant land and commercial buildings around a new airport would be much larger. But the Board of Supervisors has left the possibility open for study.

Homes in Santa Ana Heights are less than one mile from John Wayne’s runways, and it shows. Larger than life, planes rise over the trees and rooftops. Residents’ voices unconsciously rise and drop in tandem with arriving and departing flights.

“You don’t even really notice after awhile,” said Bryant. “I used to live right at the end of the runway at Ontario Airport. This is much better.”

Others who fought and lost three lawsuits have had their bitterness softened by a decade, but it is still there.

“The only time it still really hurts is when people come over for a barbecue,” said Arlene Hall on Indus Street. “When the first big plane comes over, they all say, ‘You put up with that?! Why do you live here?’ ”

“You can never, ever get used to it,” said her husband, Ed, who spearheaded many of the legal battles. “All you can say is, ‘At least you did everything you could.’ ”

He said he would never take part in the county acoustics program, because “you sign away all your rights. You give them the right to crash an airplane in your house and kill you.”

Neighbors and Chambers said that while program participants must sign a legal agreement, it only limits their right to sue because of noise.

“The document is not intended to exclude their ability for legal recourse in the event of a safety issue,” said Chambers.

Neighbors had a blunter take on it.

“We’ve got no air rights to begin with. You can’t stop them from flying planes right over your head anyway,” said Mary Andrews. “You might as well get something out of it.”

Ron Smith of SGI Insulation said retrofitting a home is a sure way to combat noise--on the inside. In fact, he said, residents near airports--Burbank and Ontario as well as John Wayne and Los Angeles International Airport--all are applying the contractor’s version of earmuffs to their homes.

“You have to make sure it’s done completely and correctly,” Smith said. He noted, for instance, a home with little insulation but a quiet back bedroom might experience a dramatic increase in noise if just the roof were insulated.

“It creates a bell effect. It pushes the noise down inside. Now you’ve got a problem in that bedroom,” said Smith.

In spite of their own past battles, many Santa Ana Heights residents have little sympathy for residents in Aliso Viejo, Laguna Niguel and other communities who are fighting plans to bring jumbo jets to South County.

“You can’t block progress. Orange County needs that airport,” Ed Hall said. “People down there are engaging in anarchy, trying to overturn the will of the majority.”

“Those people down there don’t want life to change. Well, nothing ever stays the same,” said Arlene Hall. “Young people need jobs, businesses in the county need those flights.”

Insurance Against Airport Expansion

Part of the lack of sympathy stems from self-interest.

“I don’t have anything to say to the people near El Toro. I just want the planes to get on down there and leave here!” said a man who would only give his first name, Mike.

Everyone interviewed had voted for the new South County airport in both countywide referendums on El Toro. They see it as the surest guarantee that John Wayne will not be expanded beyond its current capacity, a perennial fear. The proposal approved by the Board of Supervisors two weeks ago calls for a dual airport system. John Wayne could be in for expansion again after 2005, when a federal court settlement mandating a nighttime curfew and a maximum of 8 million annual passengers expires.

“Now that I would fight. That I do not agree with,” said Andrews of 24-hour operations at both John Wayne and El Toro. “They cannot have those planes running all night.”

But there are still major differences between an envisioned commercial airport at El Toro and the current operations at John Wayne Airport. The proposed El Toro airport would be much larger, able to accommodate 747s and other large planes. John Wayne Airport is perched on barely 500 acres.

One final tip from those John Wayne neighbors--if it’s a cloudy day, cover your ears.

“The clouds definitely trap the sound and hold it down here,” said Bryant.

* EL TORO FOE: Ex-Irvine Mayor Larry Agran takes on airport fight. B1

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Keeping It Quiet

South County homeowners could find themselves under airplane approach and takeoff paths if El Toro Marine Corps Air Station is converted to a commercial/cargo airport. Some residents of Santa Ana Heights have used the Acoustical Improvement Program funded by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Orange County Development Authority to lower noise in their homes. Examples of upgrades made for a 2,000-square-foot house, and current cost estimates, including parts, labor, taxes, and permits:

New furnace: $1,100-$1,850, depending on duct replacement and asbestos removal costs

New central air conditioning: $3,700-$4,500

Steel or vinyl sash double-paned (air between two layers of glass) windows and French doors: $5,000

Chimney spark trap (also blocks noise): $75

Glass fireplace doors: $400

Solid core, 300-pound front door: $6,000

Extra heavyweight roof insulation; $900-$1,000

Heavyweight wall insulation: $1,650-$1,870

Sources: John Wayne Airport, League of California Homeowners, individual contractors

Researched by JANET WILSON / Los Angeles Times