Health Issues Cloud El Toro

On March 5, voters in Orange County will be going to the polls to decide Measure W--a zoning question on whether the 4,700-acre former Marine air base at El Toro will become a new commercial airport or be developed as the proposed Great Park. Lurking in the background is the problem of soil contamination.

As a practical matter, regardless which way the vote goes, it looks as if it will take many years before anything is built at the abandoned base. Some have even said neither will ever be developed there. That’s because when the Marines left the base several years ago it wasn’t entirely abandoned. Left behind is soil loaded with so many contaminated waste products that the land has been designated as one of the most polluted in the nation and is included in the federal Superfund priority list for cleanup.

The federal government is obligated to clean up the land, but the level of cleanup will be determined by the level of land use. Much more cleanup obviously is needed for a park than an airport. But the practical problem facing the county, or whoever ultimately develops the land, is that the federal cleanup fund budgets only $139 million for all of the closed military bases in the country. Cleanup estimates at El Toro alone have been set in some reports at $350 million or more. And the government has no deadline for doing the cleanup work.

More troubling than budget uncertainties, however, is a county report this month claiming park development at El Toro would expose people to carcinogens and other unknown pollution in the soil. An Irvine report nearly two years ago came to a similar conclusion about pollution risks, but proponents still see a park as viable.

Unfortunately, no one really knows exactly how contaminated portions of the base are. Until that is determined, no matter how the vote goes March 5, public health and safety will require any development to be put on hold.