Airport Foes’ Noise Study Says 250,000 Would Suffer

Trying to show that jet noise would have a major impact on residents, foes of the proposed airport at El Toro released details of a long-awaited engineering study Thursday, then acknowledged that it was an unscientific report based on an earlier telephone survey.

The airport foes, nevertheless, insisted that noise from departing aircraft would disrupt the daily lives of 250,000 South County residents around the El Toro site.

The study by Robert Bein, William Frost & Associates, an Irvine engineering firm, is aimed at debunking assurances by county planners that El Toro would be a “quiet” and “community-friendly” airport.

“For the county to say that noise is not a factor [at El Toro] is misleading at best and deceptive at the worst,” said Mission Viejo Councilwoman Susan Withrow, who chairs the anti-airport, seven-city El Toro Reuse Planning Authority that commissioned the study.

County airport planners immediately dismissed the study as irrelevant. They pointed out that the noise analysis was based on a departure plan revised more than a year ago and on complaints extrapolated from a small slice of residents near John Wayne Airport.

“The most alarming thing is their contention that the county says there will be no noise [from El Toro] and that no one is going to be annoyed. I’ve never said that,” said acoustic engineer Vince Mestre of Newport Beach, who conducts airport noise analyses for the county.

“In San Francisco, they get noise complaints from 50 miles away,” he said. “There is a segment of the population who will be highly annoyed no matter where they live. A zero-annoyance airport doesn’t exist.”

Previous county studies have shown that no homes or schools would be located within an area of the highest jet noise anticipated from El Toro. State law requires that soundproofing be installed in any residences and schools near airports where noise averages 65 decibels over a 24-hour period.

County planners have used that information to assure South County residents that the noise impacts from El Toro would be negligible, particularly because the base is surrounded by 18,000 acres of undeveloped land.

But airport foes led by ETRPA insist that the high-noise zone protections mean nothing when it comes to the disruption caused by planes that are expected to land or depart on an average of every five minutes around the clock.

Their survey asked 481 residents in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa how much they were impacted by John Wayne Airport noise. All live outside the high-noise zone. The survey found that 12.5% of the residents were upset by noise even as far as three miles away. However, 61.1% of the residents said they weren’t bothered by airport noise and 26.4% said their lives were only somewhat disrupted.

Numbers Based on Year-Old Plan

Using those responses, the engineering firm overlaid a similar noise-sensitivity area around El Toro. It determined that 247,000 residents lived in that area.

A second part of the study calculated how many homes would be affected by loud takeoffs from large Boeing 747 and 767 jets, both of which are expected to be used at the new airport.

At a sound level of 85 decibels, which is loud enough to interrupt sleep, the study found that about 2,000 homes to the north would be affected by takeoffs of 747 jets. No homes to the north were affected by 767s.

Airport planners said the number of homes was based on a plan abandoned a year ago. Under that plan, planes departed to the north and then hooked west over Orange.

A subsequent analysis based on Federal Aviation Administration standards found that planes could take off safely heading straight north, thus affecting fewer homes, Mestre said.

Steven R. Bein, who worked on the study for the South County cities, said his analysis relied on information provided from an earlier county environmental report. It was the only information available from the county on how much noise individual aircraft would make on takeoff, said Meg Waters, a spokeswoman for ETRPA.

Besides, she said, the straight-north departure path is being challenged by the Air Line Pilots Assn. as unsafe because planes have to clear Loma Ridge.

“The county keeps changing its plans every two months, and when we question things, they call us liars and malcontents,” Waters said. “I’d put ETRPA’s record of being right against the county’s record of being wrong any time.”

The South County studies were released Thursday before a public hearing at Irvine City Hall on plans for El Toro. County Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Thomas W. Wilson, who comprise the anti-airport minority on the five-member county board, attended.

Both complained Thursday that they continually must play detective in dealing with El Toro issues because the pro-airport majority tries to minimize their effectiveness by failing to give them enough information.

When air cargo leases at John Wayne Airport came up for renewal last month, for example, the agenda item didn’t indicate that a four-fifths vote was required, as it had in the past. Spitzer discovered the requirement, and the item was pulled from the agenda after he raised questions. The leases are back on the agenda for the board’s May 5 meeting.

County officials hoped to move cargo operations to El Toro after July, when the Marines will shutter the base. But Navy officials now say environmental studies won’t be done until December, which means that a master lease for interim activities at the base can’t be signed until then.

On a related matter Thursday, Spitzer also questioned an agenda item next week to seek bids for a paving contractor to handle maintenance work at both John Wayne Airport and El Toro. The contract would allow work costing up to $1 million to be approved internally without board approval, even though specific projects aren’t defined.

Spitzer and Wilson said they oppose spending any money to improve runways or taxiways at El Toro.