El Toro Airport Plans Grounded?

* In April, before county planners unveiled their “Gateway to the 21st Century” airport plan for El Toro, they had ample time to examine the competing non-aviation Millennium Plan.

So why did $4 million of planning for an International Trade Center, Global Village and Hillside Research Center suddenly get scrapped, just months after Supervisors Silva, Smith and Steiner voted to adopt the plan? What had changed?

What changed wasn’t the traffic projections that had been known all along. It wasn’t the economics.

The major new element in the picture was the July 2 letter from the 50,000-member Air Line Pilots Assn., objecting to the county’s planned north takeoffs into the mountains. While both national pilots organizations had previously objected to easterly takeoffs, the July 2 letter was the first to address the hazards of north takeoffs over Loma Ridge.

The pilots association safety experts call for tearing up the military runways and putting in all new ones, aimed more northwesterly toward Tustin, Orange and Villa Park. Many see the county’s sudden decision to remove previously planned major buildings from alongside the runways as a necessary first step toward moving the runways. It may be a necessity for getting approval for El Toro from the aviation industry.

LEONARD KRANSER

Dana Point

* The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority sent letters to Newport Beach residents stating they want to “work with us, not against us” and urge us to “tone down the political rhetoric” regarding an airport at El Toro. Their letter suggested we oppose any plans of our city to hire a P.R. firm.

I have a question: If they succeed in destroying the El Toro airport project and have no more worries of it being in their backyard, will they guarantee to put forth the same time, money and effort to prevent John Wayne Airport from expanding?

BONNIE O’NEIL

Newport Beach

* A paragraph in an Aug. 12 article (“El Toro Jet Noise Analysis Isn’t Sound, Critics Say”) said, “Bert Hack of Leisure World said tests of a Boeing 747 flown 1,000 feet over the Leisure World golf course registered between 86 and 94 decibels. That kind of noise, particularly at night, could have a devastating effect on elderly residents, he said.”

The statement is misleading because nobody lives on the golf course. It is, after all, a golf course. Also, noise decreases as the square of the distance from the source.

I live closer to the noisiest part of the Leisure World golf course than more than 99% of the people in Orange County. I may be inconvenienced if El Toro becomes a commercial airport. But I do not believe that I or anyone else in Orange County will be harmed.

RICHARD MILLER

Laguna Hills

* Before the Board of Supervisors and residents of North County rush to vote on the development of an airport at the El Toro base, perhaps they should consider this: All the airlines surcharge us heavily now to fly out of John Wayne Airport compared to LAX.

Case in point: A recent air fare pricing from OC to San Francisco cost $266. The air fare from LAX to San Francisco, however, is $66. What might the fares be from a new airport even further south? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what most of us have to do right now: drive to Los Angeles for a fare a quarter the cost!

S. STANLEY

Mission Viejo

* In her Aug. 23 letter, Debra O’Donnell of Santa Ana asks who she should believe--an “unbiased” professional expert in noise, or anti-airport South County residents?

I live 3 1/2 miles south of the primary landing runway at El Toro, also used for takeoffs in the opposite direction by all military and/or civilian transport jets flying in and out of the base. My home is adjacent to the so-called “no-home buffer zone” which is at this point less than 3,000 feet wide, with homes on both sides of that “zone.”

The real noise experts are folks like myself living under and/or near flight paths, who have to deal with the intrusive noise associated with each passing plane. Noise is noise, and is disturbing whether it is 100 or 60 decibels, or whether it is the noise from a dripping faucet when you try to go to sleep.

Acoustics expert Vince Mestre tells us that most of the noise will be confined within the base, which is 3 miles long and 2 1/2 miles wide. Interestingly, the majority of the noise complaints at John Wayne Airport come from residents who live outside the airport’s noise contour lines. According to the county’s own figures, residents in Balboa and Corona del Mar, the last to hear departing jets 5 to 6 miles away from John Wayne Airport, registered 165 complaints in a recent quarterly report, while Santa Ana Heights residents, the closest to the airport, complained just six times. Orange and Tustin, under the landing path, called 29 times.

Thus, it is residents who live under or near the flight paths several miles away from the airport who may shoulder the most severe impact of the proposed El Toro airport.

NICOLAS G. DZEPINA

Aliso Viejo