We Need an Airport, We Don’t Need an Airport

Re “Read Our Lips: County Needs a Second Airport,” Orange County Voices, Feb. 4:

Shirley Conger seems to be in some fantasy that because there are a few strawberry fields lining the borders of El Toro, the entire area will be devoid of the sounds of aircraft from a proposed El Toro airport.

She apparently wasn’t on the deck at the home in Aliso Viejo during the flight demonstrations when a surprised Supervisor Chuck Smith admitted there would be a need for noise mitigation.

Conger, Airport Working Group, and other pro-El Toro groups cheered when Measure F was overturned. Will they be cheering when there are still no planes flying from El Toro in 2005? Isn’t that about the time John Wayne’s runways can be expanded, the curfews axed and restrictions on passenger loads can fall by the wayside? Measure F was the solution to all of the above, but Conger and others let their selfishness get in the way.

By the way, Ms. Conger, did you read the Times’ Sunday editorial, “El Toro’s Deep Divide: A More Forthright Debate Is Needed in Bush Era”? Sounds like their faith in your rulers has become devoid of confidence.

PAUL L. HUTCHINS

Laguna Woods

*

Shirley Conger dutifully recites pro-airport propaganda about the comparative sizes of the buffer zones around John Wayne and the former El Toro Marine base, the mythical need for more airport capacity than John Wayne provides, and offers anecdotal evidence of the heavy price residents near John Wayne have paid over the years.

What she fails to mention is that the amount of air traffic at John Wayne has declined since 1992 and that the number of passengers using it has declined steadily as well. She omits that arrival and departure routes to be used at El Toro have yet to be finalized, so it is impossible to state how many homes would fall within takeoff and landing paths.

Ms. Conger, those of us with the most to lose by an airport at El Toro will fight this project every step of the way.

DOUGLAS BLAUL

Trabuco Canyon

*

Shirley Conger’s article about the Santa Ana Heights community and John Wayne Airport throws a new light on the choice of airports in Orange County. Shall we sacrifice the people in Santa Ana Heights so that South County cities can maintain their “quality of life?” Is this environmental justice?

I would suggest that there are real moral choices here that have been obscured by the expensive advertising from Irvine and other South County cities. When Orange County residents become aware of the whole story, they will want to have their flights begin at El Toro.

ROE A. SHAW

Newport Beach

*

From county records, the county has and is in the process of retrofitting the neighborhood of Santa Ana Heights to the tune of $33,500 per home to meet the 65 decibel noise level.

The real fact is that Conger and friends are experiencing the effects of “single event noise levels” up to 100 decibels as the planes fly overhead. I personally have done noise measurements with accurate instruments at John Wayne and LAX and have experienced “single event noise levels” exceeding 100 decibels.

We will not be fooled by the so-called 65 CNEL (community noise equivalent level), or claims of a buffer zone used by the county to “mask the real noise” of the commercial aircraft arriving or departing the airport.

DAVE KIRKEY

Coto de Caza

*

As a 19-year resident of the 18,000-resident retirement community of Leisure World, Laguna Woods (average age 77), I can testify that the noise of a Marine Corps fighter jet is much greater than the noisiest aircraft using John Wayne; but we lived with our good neighbors because night operations were rare and the F-18s did not interrupt our sleep.

However, the proposed commercial airport at El Toro will have no curfews and no noise restrictions, making Leisure World uninhabitable. The so-called buffer zone around El Toro is a myth. Jets coming in for a landing over us are below 1,500 feet in the middle of our community. The expensive sound test conducted in l999 demonstrated that an El Toro airport would make living in most of South County impossible.

The Airport Site Consensus Team study of 1988-89--the most comprehensive and objective study ever conducted to identify an appropriate site for a commercial airport in Orange County--rejected El Toro as a potential site. For a summary go to https://www.eltoroairport.org, click on “Issues & Info,” then “Other Area Airports” and finally “Airport Site Consensus.”

This study should have precluded any consideration of converting El Toro to a commercial airport, but it was ignored.

DAVE BLODGETT

Laguna Woods

*

Shirley Conger’s impassioned plea for sympathy for the victims of John Wayne Airport is a welcome change from the imagined fears of El Toro airport opponents drummed into our heads during the last five years. John Wayne Airport is here now and people are suffering. Some of those flights must be moved over to El Toro where no one is in the noise zone even when it is fully operational. It’s time to stop the talk and start the flights at El Toro.

ELAINE GEORGE

Newport Beach