Poll Finds Mixed Bag on El Toro Tests

A poll conducted in the wake of flight demonstrations this month at El Toro Marine base shows that 42% of South County residents thought the commercial jets were louder than expected while 48% said they were quieter than expected or they didn’t hear the planes at all.

Despite mixed reaction to the flights, 80% said they still don’t want the airport built.

About three-quarters of the 300 residents who responded said they were at home during the testing June 4 and 5, according to Global Strategies Group of New York, which completed the survey for the Airport Working Group. The working group supports converting the base to an airport.

The survey, conducted June 10 and 13, confirmed that noise is not the overriding issue in the opposition to El Toro, said David Ellis of Irvine, a consultant with the Airport Working Group.

“The other side would have you believe that everyone in South County had the same reaction” to the test flights, he said. “That just wasn’t so.”

Officials for the anti-airport side said the survey results validate that the airport will impact too many people.

“This shows what we’ve been saying [that] people just don’t want the airport,” said Meg Waters, spokeswoman for an eight-city coalition fighting El Toro. “Noise is just one of the issues.”

A majority of Orange County supervisors want to build an airport at the 4,700-acre base after the Marines leave July 2. The current plan under study calls for an international facility serving 28.8 million passengers a year by 2020. At the same time, John Wayne Airport in Newport Beach would shrink to about 5 million passengers a year.

The Airport Working Group, composed mostly of Newport Beach residents, has worked for more than 20 years to find an alternative to John Wayne Airport, which it claims is too small and constrained to handle all of the county’s airport demand. Newport Beach lies under the departure path.

The group’s survey found that objections to commercial jet noise near El Toro were strongest underneath the path for jets arriving from the south over Laguna Woods, Aliso Viejo and Lake Forest.

Residents beneath the eastern departure path over Rancho Santa Margarita, Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills also were more likely than not to have been bothered by the noise.

But the survey showed that residents farther from the flight paths--those in Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo and Dana Point--either didn’t pay attention to the flights or were less bothered by what noise they heard.

Ellis said the broader survey of South County was commissioned because media coverage of the test focused on those living beneath the flight path, where noise was loudest and opposition fiercest.

He said a rally held Wednesday night in Aliso Viejo was at “the epicenter” of airport opposition.

Most South County cities oppose construction of the airport, arguing that it is unnecessary and would ruin their quality of life. Led by the eight-city El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, anti-airport forces sued the county over environmental studies and have pledged to fight every airport approval in court.

On Thursday, the 4th District Court of Appeal upheld the county’s planning process for El Toro, rejecting arguments by South County foes. The court affirmed earlier rulings by San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell on behalf of the county’s environmental studies and reversed other rulings where she had faulted the county’s work, according to a memo to county supervisors from County Counsel Laurence M. Watson.

However, the Court of Appeals agreed with McConnell’s rulings in favor of airport foes on two issues--that county demand forecasts for the airport and assumptions about John Wayne Airport were inadequate. The county has already completed a supplemental study in those areas that will be submitted to the court.