After El Toro Demonstration, Readers Sound Off on Jet Noise

* Based on the two flights that occurred late in the school day June 4, we believe that the problem of El Toro airport noise will have a more negative impact on children attending school under or near planned flight paths than we had previously believed.

The principal of Oak Grove Elementary in Aliso Viejo informed me that personnel had to cease talking for one to two minutes each time a plane flew over the school.

News reports said Oak Grove’s single-incident decibel maximums exceeded 81, a level harmful to maintaining a productive learning environment.

The principal of Aliso Niguel High School also advised us that because the aircraft noise was so loud and pervasive, coaches were unable to communicate with athletes on the field.

The concern of educators about the impact of this airport is not simply idle speculation.

A major research project completed in 1997 by Dr. Gary Evans of Cornell University (e-mail: gwe1@cornell.edu) concluded that children attending school with airport noise distractions did not learn to read as well as students whose learning environment was quieter.

In 1998, Evans, in an even more significant research study, reported that airport noise not only negatively affects children’s academic achievement but impacts their health as well.

As reported in a March 4, 1998, Cornell publication, Evans concluded: “The constant noise from jet aircraft can seriously affect the psychological health and physical well-being of children. The health problems . . . including higher blood pressure and boosted levels of stress hormones may have lifelong effects.”

What makes the El Toro airport discussion so significant is that, unlike the era of airport construction before 1997, we now have definitive scientific data detailing the educational and health effects of airport noise on schoolchildren.

I can only hope the Board of Supervisors will take the Evans research into consideration as they determine the future of El Toro.

Since the board reportedly spent $1.4 million to conduct last weekend’s test flights, I would respectfully suggest that they spend another few hundred dollars to fly Evans from New York state to Santa Ana so they might receive a firsthand report from the nation’s most prolific noise pollution scientist.

JAMES A. FLEMING

Superintendent

Capistrano Unified School District

* Before the flight tests, I was undecided about a commercial airport at El Toro. I wanted to look at the issue with an open mind. After the tests, I am absolutely against the airport.

My family lives near the intersection of Lake Forest and Trabuco Roads. I expect to hear airport noise as a natural consequence of our location.

During the tests, our neighborhood was not affected by landing noise, but takeoff noise from both runways was unacceptably high.

On June 5, we were home outdoors for an A300 plane’s northbound departure and an MD-90 aircraft’s eastbound departure.

The noise was loud enough that our conversation was interrupted for about 20 seconds in both cases.

I am an electrical engineer and have conducted sound level measurements as part of my duties. I am not an expert, but I have more than a basic understanding of this topic.

I conclude that the published “community noise equivalent level” noise contours are meaningless. The CNEL figures do not relate to our sensory perception, since they are an average level, rather than a peak sound level.

Our ears hear continuous, instantaneous sound events, not average levels. As an example, periodic explosions next door could have a 60-decibel CNEL noise level if the intervening “quiet” intervals were long enough. The seemingly acceptable CNEL value does not mean the explosion noise is tolerable.

I am disappointed that I didn’t witness a Boeing 747 departure. Half of the tests, and all of the 747 flights, were scheduled on a Friday, when most working adults are away from home. Since the wide-body 747s are very noisy, I suspect this was not coincidental.

I cannot imagine living with takeoff noise every two or three minutes. I now understand why the Newport Beach contingent is so strongly in favor of an El Toro airport.

GARY CUMMINGS

Lake Forest

* It wasn’t until the weekend flight tests that I realized just how low and loud these planes are on their approach. I am horrified that this airport is even being considered for Orange County.

I am formerly a resident of Los Angeles County. The more time I spend away from Los Angeles, the harder it is to go up there.

That county is hard and urban and chaotic. Orange County is green and orderly and pleasant and quiet.

We cannot deny the El Toro airport will transform Orange County from a suburb to a city forever. This will basically put a big “X” smack dab in the heart of the county and make that whole region completely undesirable.

ROBERT NENNINGER

Newport Beach

* I live one block into Mission Viejo on the Lake Forest side, 3.5 miles from the east-west runway at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

I work within 1,000 feet of that same runway. With the exception of one Boeing 767 plane, I heard none of the other aircraft in the weekend’s noise tests.

Let’s move beyond selfish, self-centered distortions. Let’s look at the realities of Orange County’s air-traffic needs for the next 10, 20 and 30 years.

Let’s look at Orange County’s economy and our links to the Asian-Pacific region. Let’s look at our need for real jobs, offering real opportunities and significant incomes.

We need to ask ourselves when will we ever again have an opportunity to develop an existing airport like El Toro, with all the necessary noise buffers, right in the middle of Orange County.

We have been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Let’s not throw it away because a few self-serving people, who received steep discounts when they purchased their homes next to the Marine station, see an opportunity to achieve 15% to 25% increases in their property values if the proposed airport is killed.

If these people want to kill the airport, they are going to need a stronger argument than noise pollution, because the traffic on El Toro Road makes much more noise then commercial aircraft.

JEFFERY L. MORGAN

Mission Viejo

* I am appalled at the lack of understanding by residents and “experts” as to what an international airport will mean to a significant area surrounding the proposed site in El Toro.

I have traveled to many international airports. I have never looked out my window seat at the ground and thought, “Gee it would be nice to live down there.”

I am usually looking at airport parking lots, run-down businesses and residential areas, junkyards and very industrial, polluted areas.

Laguna Woods, Laguna Hills and Lake Forest will probably become one of those areas. We have to stop this madness.

JOHN FAUX

Lake Forest

* I had much interest in the weekend test flights at El Toro.

I am curious, though, to find out which weekend we will be testing the amount of smog, traffic, crime, and lowered academic performances by schoolchildren, which will undoubtedly accompany the presence of an international airport.

JENNIFER STERETT

Irvine

* The air test did prove a few things: that the county supervisors lack the ability to lead this county and that airplanes do make a lot of noise.

The supervisors are intent on jamming an airport down our throats in the interests of the wealthy land developers.

MILTON G. MERMELSTEIN

Lake Forest

* The mayor of Laguna Hills is critical of El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon’s suggestion that Orange County take care of its own air traffic needs and not depend upon other counties whose airports have their own problems (Letters, May 29).

Mayor Cindy Greengold stated, “Heavy industry such as an international airport belongs in industrial areas, which are planned and built as such.”

Surely Greengold knows that south Orange County was built around El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which included large buffer zones and no-home zones.

People who bought in the area had to sign a document stating they were aware of buying in an airport area. South County is simply trading the incredibly loud military jets for the much quieter commercial jets.

M. KRONE

Anaheim

* I would like to take this opportunity to thank El Toro Program Manager Courtney Wiercioch and County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier for their contribution to the El Toro airport tests.

I’m so looking forward to the day when my family can sit in our backyard and take in the sights, noise, smells and pollution of the beautiful airplanes flying over our house every three minutes.

If we don’t get enough excitement in our backyard, we can always take a drive down the hill and join the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Thanks a bunch!

A. WISDOM

Foothill Ranch

* The test flights have begun; the noise levels and flight levels were observed; neither was what the supporters of the El Toro airport said would be true.

Flights are lower than estimated and noise levels higher than anticipated.

As a resident directly below the approach path of the aircraft in Dana Point, I am appalled at the low elevation and the noise level.

It amazes me that supporters of an El Toro airport are comparing acceptable noise levels for aircraft to that of a vacuum cleaner.

As a resident of a coastal community, I do not care to live with noise from a vacuum every four minutes, 24 hours a day. Why would the noise from flying aircraft be any more acceptable?

We concern ourselves with the safety of our wildlife and the impact our toll roads are having on our environment. Have we lost sight of our own safety and quality of life?

SUSIE McCOLLOM

Dana Point

* Three Orange County supervisors have deemed that our clear blue skies be forever filled with the roar of jets, one every three minutes, 24 hours a day, as far into the future as the eye can see.

Entire families in the up-and-coming young communities of Aliso Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita will be driven from their homes or doomed to a life directly under the flight path of an international airport.

These same supervisors recently gave lip service on Memorial Day to remembering our World War II veterans. Yet they disrespect their elders enough to blithely subject the entire senior city of Laguna Woods to intolerable and constant noise and air pollution, right over their heads, every day, all night.

Apparently these supervisors have ambitions to make their mark on the history of Orange County. Let me warn them that their names will be tarnished as the infamous supervisors who were responsible for the irreversible destruction of property, life, nature and even the economy.

JAKE HOSS

Newport Beach

* My family and I recently moved to Rancho Santa Margarita from Ohio. Up to this point, I was completely indifferent to the proposed airport at El Toro.

As an engineer and businessman, I could accept that building an airport had potential benefit to my community and to myself. Now that we have had the noise test, however, I have come to realize that I was wrong.

The noise is much worse than I ever anticipated. Also, my son’s elementary school is directly underneath the flight path. If this airport is built, the quality of life for my family and me, as well as our entire community, will be irreparably harmed.

CHRISTOPHER G. LOWER

Rancho Santa Margarita

* Supervisor Charles V. Smith said (June 6) the demonstration was “to help people who haven’t made up their minds.”

Well, as one of those “people,” I’ve now concluded that the planes would be overwhelmingly noisy and intrusive. But will my opinion really matter to Smith? I doubt it.

Instead of wasting taxpayer money on a demonstration which has convinced me to join the anti-airport efforts, he should explore [more use of] the airport in the city of Ontario, where they’ve expressed interest.

CHRISTINE YOCCA

Monarch Beach