$3-Million Test of Noise at El Toro OKd

Orange County supervisors Tuesday approved a $3-million test of commercial jet flights at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, even though county planners say the test is nonscientific and useless in any official evaluation of noise levels for the planned international airport there.

The two-day demonstration, which includes night flights, was approved by the usual 3-2 majority that has moved along controversial plans for a major airport at El Toro.

Despite the acknowledged uselessness of the test, pro-airport supervisors believe the demonstration will show how much noise might be generated by an airport.

However, they could not complete their test plans, including scheduling the flights, mainly because military officials still must approve the demonstration and could require time-consuming environmental studies first.

County officials also haven’t decided where noise monitors would be placed around the base. A preliminary map shows eight noise monitors, five on departure paths to the north and east, and three on arrival paths from the south. Five commercial planes, including wide- and narrow-body jets, would be used.

The county’s timetable calls for an airport to be built at the 4,700-acre base to accommodate as many as 24 million passengers a year by 2020.

Tuesday’s meeting was filled with South County residents opposed to the airport. They argued that the noise, traffic and pollution would ruin their quality of life.

Seven South County cities officially oppose the airport.

The City Council in Irvine, one of the seven, voted Tuesday to spend $2 million of a budget surplus to fight the county’s plans and promote an alternative non-aviation business and residential proposal.

Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson, who represent South County constituents, voted against the test flights, saying they amount to no more than an expensive public relations gimmick. They said the 60 takeoffs and landings over two days would produce nothing useful toward showing the stress of noise generated from nearly 900 takeoffs and landings a day at El Toro.

But the board majority, including freshman Supervisor Cynthia Coad, said the flights will give a “real-world” snapshot of aircraft noise that could show that the engine roar won’t be as bad as opponents in South County fear.

“There are letters [from South County residents] to our board offices saying let’s not do the noise test because it won’t prove what we want it to prove,” said a clearly irked Supervisor Jim Silva.

Silva at first gave support for noise monitors in Foothill Ranch and Mission Viejo at the request of Spitzer, who had asked his colleagues to add the monitors even though he remains opposed to the test flights. But Silva, who believed Spitzer would vote for the test with the monitors, later yanked his support. The board will review final placement of the monitors and other noise-test issues in 60 days.

At the close of Tuesday’s meeting, Wilson floated another plan attempting to halt the airport. He suggested that supervisors at a future date approve a system requiring countywide voter referendums for “noxious” projects like an airport, landfill or jail expansion. He said the referendums should require passage by a two-thirds vote and go on the ballot at the end of a project’s planning process.

Requiring voter passage of large projects affecting neighborhoods and businesses would force county planners to better respond to the concerns of those living around the projects. He called the El Toro process “exclusionary” and “tainted by special interests.”

Smith dismissed Wilson’s idea Tuesday as unrealistic.

“I don’t take much stock in it,” he said. “The legal ramifications are pretty sticky.”

Separately, a county official told supervisors Tuesday that county and Navy negotiators are “at a logjam” over fundamental issues in a required master lease agreement that would govern management of the base from the time the Marines leave in July until the county is deeded the property, a process that could take a year or more.

Times correspondent James Meier contributed to this report.