Pressure at John Wayne

Ever since commercial jets began flying out of John Wayne Airport on Sept. 1, 1967, the county airfield’s future has been up in the air. Residents and public officials have wrestled with the role the airfield should fill in serving Orange County’s passenger and air freight needs, whether John Wayne alone can adequately fill those needs, and the county’s responsibility in the regional airport mix.

After nearly two decades of controversy, legal actions and a formal settlement agreement, nothing seems to have been resolved. Today, the community still faces those decisions. They have been brought into focus again by the passage of Measure F, which, if upheld, will severely limit the county’s ability to construct a new airport at El Toro or elsewhere, or even undertake a major expansion of John Wayne.

The issue also has prompted Newport Beach to seek renegotiation of the 20-year compromise agreement. It limits operating hours and sets noise and other restrictions, including an annual cap of 8.4 million on the number of passengers the airport can serve. The agreement expires in 2005, but city officials have asked that it be extended. That drew a cool reception from county supervisors, who will reconsider the request Dec. 5.

Before that 1985 agreement, the Board of Supervisors was on record as saying that there was no other suitable site for an airport in urban Orange County. As part of the John Wayne compromise, it abandoned that policy on a 4-1 vote, with then Supervisor Bruce Nestande casting the opposing vote. Nestande, now a spokesman for the pro-El Toro airport cause, insisted, at a time the Marines still were occupying El Toro, that there wasn’t a site for an additional major international airport in the community because the county had become too urbanized.

The Irvine City Council raised threats of legal action prophetically fearful that the new board policy would bring about renewed interest in joint civilian-military use of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The city felt, as it still does, that it had as good an argument against jet operations at El Toro as Newport Beach had against more jets at John Wayne.

If the competing communities’ arguments haven’t changed, some major factors have. The major development was the federal decision in 1993 to close El Toro, making the abandoned air base available. But even since that base became available, a lot has changed. Advocates of a commercial airport at El Toro misread the narrow passage of Measure A in 1994 as a mandate to plan for a major international airport at the site. That decision created a virtual civil war in Orange County over the proposal.

Complicating any planning either for John Wayne or El Toro airports is Measure F’s requirement of an election and two-thirds vote of approval for any major airport project. There also is the problem of how to meet growth demands, which the Southern California Assn. of Governments says will reach about 30 million annual passengers a year by 2020.

There also has been a lot of talk about Orange County’s responsibility to the region. In the range of solutions to that perceived obligation lies an array of dramatically different choices that may or may not be politically viable. These have included the discredited major international airport at El Toro, a smaller airport at the site, various levels of increased passenger and flight caps at John Wayne, or expansion of that facility.

The three-member pro-El Toro airport majority on the Board of Supervisors spent a lot of its political capital on the premise that a big El Toro airport had to be studied, and indeed, planned for. This has allowed positions to harden over time, especially as questions mounted about the feasibility of the proposal. Today, the window of opportunity that might allow any airport proposal to win community acceptance for El Toro may be very narrow, if it has not closed entirely.

Another major factor since the agreement is the new passenger terminal at John Wayne and the increased parking and freeway-access improvements that give the airfield the ability to handle many more passengers than the existing 8.4 million maximum allows.

It’s unlikely that John Wayne, with its current limits, will have the capacity to serve all of Orange County’s growth. Any talk of increasing that capacity is sure to ignite a firestorm of protest in Newport Beach.

Moreover, federal requirements aren’t the same as 15 years ago, and the ability to limit flight operations may prove more difficult if not impossible. Given all the factors, any new agreement must have realistic restrictions and passenger maximums--especially if John Wayne’s runway ends up being the only place for commercial aviation to land in Orange County.