Study Predicts El Toro Air Pollution

Orange County officials are acknowledging that a proposed commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base could cause significant air pollution that could not be mitigated.

Under orders from a San Diego County judge, county officials on Friday released a revised version of their 1996 environmental impact review for an airport at El Toro.

The new report’s findings are contrary to the county’s earlier analysis, which predicted that air pollution could be reduced to a point of insignificance.

“I don’t think anyone really believed the county when they said there wouldn’t be major impacts,” anti-airport spokesman Leonard Kranser said Friday. “Now the truth is coming out.”

The new analysis shows significant air pollution in the area stretching from El Toro to John Wayne Airport, if El Toro is developed as a large commercial airfield. “The proposed project will result in significant regional air quality impacts attributable to aircraft emissions that cannot be mitigated,” the newly reissued review states.

But that may not be the final word, said Bryan Speegle, planning manager for the El Toro project. He said the county is still fine-tuning the airport plan--including reducing its size and creating ways of lessening air pollution, such as having planes at the gate hooked into electrical outlets so engines don’t have to stay on to power air-conditioning systems.

The county’s assessments of expected airport pollution so far haven’t passed muster with San Diego County Judge Judith M. McConnell, who has twice ordered the county to redo its pollution analysis after airport opponents sued over the alleged inadequacy of the county’s studies.

The county’s 1996 plan envisioned an airport serving as many as 38 million passengers a year. The current project, the subject of a second environmental review that remains unfinished, has been reduced to about 28.8 million passengers a year.

However, county officials said last month that the methodology for analyzing pollution effects in the earlier report is also being used in the still unfinished review, creating another potential snag.