Board Tries to Pull Its El Toro Plan Out of Stall

Orange County supervisors jump-started their troubled plan to build a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine base, voting late Thursday to complete a stalled environmental review and then--unless a judge decides otherwise--send the project to the ballot one more time.

The vote revived the moribund airport plan, which appeared ready to collapse in March after an overwhelming 67.3% of county voters approved a measure to severely restrict the county’s ability to build it. But a Los Angeles County judge blocked a key portion of the measure earlier this month, rallying pro-airport forces.

The board’s three-member, pro-airport majority indicated Thursday that expanding opportunities for future air travel in Orange County is simply too important, and the gift of the 56-year-old Marine airfield too propitious, to abandon the six-year effort.

While acknowledging the resilient anti-airport sentiment, particularly in South County, the board majority insisted that an airport can be built at the vast base that responds to future needs without destroying South County’s suburban ambience.

But pro-airport supervisors did make an important, if symbolic concession Thursday: They agreed to consider studying a non-airport plan for the base to the same degree as a future airport at El Toro, as well as examine a suggestion by airline pilots to reverse the flight paths.

“We’ve heard a lot of different things brought up, [and] we owe it to the people in Orange County to study some alternatives,” said board Chairman Chuck Smith, an airport supporter.

The board’s two anti-airport supervisors, who repeatedly have tried to persuade colleagues to scuttle the airport plan, agreed for the first time to allow spending to complete a necessary airport environmental review as a good-faith effort to study all alternatives..

County staffers will return to supervisors in two weeks with a breakdown of costs and timetables for further study of base development options, including a plan being pushed by Irvine to transform El Toro into a “great park.”

“Let’s get these plans on the table, let’s study them, and then the public will ultimately decide,” said Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who opposes an El Toro airport.

The board decision followed nearly six hours of testimony Tuesday by elected officials, representatives of airport interest groups and the public urging supervisors to change their respective minds on the base’s fate.

While the session was informative, the momentum already had shifted back toward the airport two weeks earlier with the ruling by L.A. County Superior Court Judge S. James Otero, who said airport spending restrictions imposed by voters were vague and probably unconstitutional.

The judge is expected to decide June 23 whether to block all or part of Measure F, which calls for a two-thirds public vote before supervisors can build new airport projects, large jails near homes or hazardous waste landfills.

Supervisors discussed, but deferred action until Tuesday, on what to do about a handful of recreation programs operated at El Toro since the Marines left in July. The Navy told Smith in a letter this week that it will padlock the base July 1 unless the county has signed a lease for the entire base and a state commission transfers police power from federal marshals to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The future of the programs appears grim, however. Approval by the State Lands Commission would have to come in June, but commission executive director Paul Thayer said Thursday that a June meeting is uncertain and, if it happens, may not include El Toro on the agenda.

Much of Thursday’s discussion before supervisors centered on environmental cleanup at the former base, which is one of the most polluted sites in the nation. Jim Dragna, an environmental attorney hired by the county, said his firm has accepted most of the Navy’s conclusions on the pollution levels, with the exception of two small base landfills and the extent of ground water pollution.

Smith earlier this month asked for estimates on cleanup costs for an airport and for other types of development. Those weren’t available Thursday. The Navy has said it has budgeted $160 million to clean up the base.

Dragna said neither his firm nor the county has done its own analysis of all of the possible hazards at the base, such as unexploded ordnance, underground chemical storage tanks and “miscellaneous soil contamination.”

He recommended further study of the entire base if there is any chance the airport plan might be changed. The Navy ultimately is responsible for additional cleanup if unknown hazards are discovered after the property has been given to the county--but the county may have to sue the federal government to force the issue, Dragna said.