Foes of LAX Expansion Find Ally in El Toro Plan

Opponents of the proposed expansion of Los Angeles International Airport have embraced efforts to build a new commercial airport on the former El Toro Marine base in Orange County.

Representatives of LAX Expansion No! urged Orange County supervisors last week to move ahead with plans to construct what would become Southern California’s second-largest airport at the closed base.

The expansion of LAX would enable the airport to handle an additional 30 million passengers, about the same number that would be served at El Toro.

Building El Toro would reduce the need to expand LAX, they argue, and is only fair considering that thousands of Orange County residents use the Los Angeles airport every day. In fact, a growing number of LAX foes are calling their pro-El Toro campaign “environmental justice.”

“It’s the only equitable way to do it,” said El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon. “We already shoulder a great deal of the Orange County burden, and we’re not happy about it.”

Their argument lies in the distribution of airline passengers heading to and from Orange County. While John Wayne Airport will handle about 7.5 million passengers this year, 12 million other Orange County travelers will have hopped onto local freeways to use LAX, according to industry estimates.

Orange County’s growing appetite for airline flights, particularly by business travelers, has added pressure to expand LAX, Gordon said. If El Toro is built, that pressure would be off LAX because most passengers could be handled closer to home, he said.

Last week, El Segundo filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles, arguing that piecemeal LAX expansion in recent years violated California environmental laws. In the last 10 years, the airport has grown from 40 million passengers a year to about 63 million passengers this year--the fourth-busiest airport in the world. A planned expansion would boost LAX to more than 90 million travelers.

It is unfair for the South Bay alone to deal with the corresponding burdens of traffic, pollution and noise, Gordon said. Those effects should be spread across a wider region because other areas benefit from the economic activity provided by airports.

Gordon has become increasingly vocal in recent months about Orange County’s responsibility to build an alternative to John Wayne Airport, which is limited to 8.4 million passengers a year through 2005.

His outspoken views landed him in a verbal tussle last month with anti-airport Assemblywoman Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) at an Assembly hearing in Santa Ana on regional airport needs.

The idea of “sharing the pain” for airport impacts is a sound one in concept, opponents of the proposed El Toro airport said last week. But they faulted LAX opponents for wanting to impose a major airport on an area that doesn’t want it instead of fully using airports that already exist.

“In the interest of environmental justice, you do want to spread out the burdens and benefits,” Irvine Councilman Larry Agran said. “But [Gordon] needs to visit the existing facilities that have lots and lots of room for expansion.”

Agran agreed that the communities near LAX shouldn’t have to endure such a major expansion as has been proposed by the Los Angeles Department of Airports. He also agreed that Orange County should accommodate more passengers--by fully using John Wayne Airport after court-sanctioned limits are lifted. County consultants have said the airport could handle up to 14 million people a year without physically enlarging the airport.

Agran also questioned forecasts by the Southern California Assn. of Governments showing airline travel in Southern California doubling in the next 20 years. He said the forecasts are based on computer models that have been consistently wrong in past years.

Gordon and other LAX expansion foes said south Orange County residents are ignoring the benefits of airports by focusing solely on the harm. Despite arguments raised frequently by El Toro airport opponents, their neighborhoods wouldn’t be ruined by an airport at El Toro, just as LAX hasn’t ruined El Segundo, he said.

“The average person here makes $90,000 a year and lives in a $400,000 home,” said Gordon, who cringes at criticism that areas near LAX are blighted and riddled with crime, traffic and graffiti.

“Our community certainly isn’t ruined by LAX,” he said, “but we don’t want it to become overrun.”

At last week’s Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting, LAX neighbors said they simply have endured all the airplanes they can.

“You want to see [airport] impact, take a look at my neighborhood,” said Mike Stevens of Inglewood, the president of LAX Expansion No! He pointed to maps showing acres of undeveloped land around El Toro, compared to 40 schools and thousands of homes within LAX’s highest noise zones.

“We’re just asking you to carry your fair share,” Stevens said.