El Toro Airport Foes Take Stand on John Wayne

A coalition of South County cities opposed to an international airport at the closed El Toro Marine base Monday endorsed the concept of fighting Newport Beach efforts to extend a passenger cap at John Wayne Airport that is set to expire in 2005.

The El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, which represents nine cities, disputed assertions that demand for air travel will grow significantly in the next 25 years. But if it does, they said, John Wayne Airport can handle Orange County’s needs by increasing the number of passengers served each year.

But the authority’s board said it opposes physical expansion of the 500-acre airport, which is limited to 8.4 million passengers annually. County officials have said the airport could handle about 12 million passengers a year if the cap were lifted.

“We were concerned that what we were doing would be misconstrued, and we don’t want this to be seen as retaliation against the city of Newport Beach,” said group chairman L. Allan Songstad Jr. of Laguna Hills. “But we think there’s plenty of capacity there.”

Newport Beach and county officials are trying to keep the passenger limit, as well as restrictions on the number of flights by the loudest aircraft. John Wayne Airport has had a nighttime flight curfew for decades.

Two years ago, ETRPA passed a resolution in support of keeping the airport limits in place.