Noise Studies Do Some Dueling on El Toro and Kids

South County leaders fighting efforts to build an international airport at the closing El Toro Marine base are pointing to a new study of an airport half a world away showing that exposure to loud jet noise can cause health problems in children. But it’s decidedly unclear what conclusions--if any--can be drawn from the study and applied to El Toro.

Cornell University researchers found that noise from a new airport in Munich, Germany, heightened blood pressure and stress hormone levels in children who live under the flight path. But a county analysis of the Cornell report found that the school closest to the Munich airport experienced twice the level of jet noise that students at the school closest to El Toro would experience if the airport is built.

In addition, county-produced noise studies have repeatedly shown that an international airport would produce less overall aircraft noise than the Marine base does now because commercial jets are much quieter than military jets. Marine F-18s, for example, produce more than twice the noise of the 737 and 757 jets that would be used at the international airport, according to the county’s noise experts, who have long maintained that jet noise from the proposed airport would not be loud enough to cause health problems for children or anyone else.

What may be most intriguing about the Cornell study is that it shows that from Chicago to far-flung places like Germany and England, communities are fighting efforts to build and expand airports.

Gary Evans, the Cornell professor who led the study, said Monday that his findings don’t refute the county’s position. But he said it’s too early to rule out health problems as a possible concern for South County residents.

“There just hasn’t been the research to determine whether noise levels like the kind [at El Toro] produce health problems,” said Evans, who is in Orange County this week to discuss the report. “We just don’t have the data.”

The study is the latest of several reports to link high levels of environmental noise such as the roar of jets to increased cardiovascular activity as well as sleep deprivation and student learning problems.

Evans’ work is considered notable because it appears to be the first effort to monitor children both before an airport is built and after it begins operating.

Evans’ work has generated great interest in South County, especially among educators concerned about how jet noise would affect their schools. Evans spoke Monday night before the Capistrano Unified School District as well as the Acoustical Society of America.

“We are reading this with great interest,” said Margie Wakeham, a trustee at the Irvine Unified School District. “Clearly, it’s not going to be good for kids to have hundreds of planes flying over their heads.”

The airport plan endorsed by the Board of Supervisors last month calls for nearly 500 takeoffs and departures a day from El Toro by 2020--almost 10 times the air traffic that the military generated in 1994.

Those living under the flight path could expect more jets roaring above them at shorter intervals perhaps every few minutes at peak times. But the jet noise would be lower than the military traffic, county officials said.

Vince Mestre, the county’s airport noise consultant, agreed that noise can create stress in people--but not at the levels El Toro passenger jets would produce. He said the jet noise experienced inside the schools and homes closest to the airport would be equivalent to the hum of air conditioner or refrigerator.

Evans said he has no reason to doubt the accuracy of the county analysis but said it does not prove that children won’t suffer. To reach that conclusion, researchers would have to study how children are affected by the lower jet noise levels expected in communities surrounding El Toro.

“We still don’t know what the effect is of having the [shorter intervals] of jets flying overhead,” Evans said. “There just hasn’t been research into how that repetition affects people.”