Conflicting Views on El Toro Status

* Re “Let Public in on FAA Hearings,” Orange County editorial, Jan. 14:

We read that an FAA technical study report says there are serious safety problems at El Toro, but that an FAA airport official says there are no problems. We certainly have every right to expect the FAA to get the El Toro safety story right, free of political spin.

But the real El Toro story is about the unproven need for a second ($7.2 billion) airport, while the current airport is used to half capacity; about the noise and pollution El Toro would cause, and which the county now admits it cannot remedy; about massive airport traffic disruptions throughout the county; and about the public trust which three of five supervisors are destroying, as they ignore the clearly stated will of the vast majority of the county.

Supervisors Smith, Coad and Silva (and some FAA officials) have forgotten the people for whom they work, and that government is meant to serve the people, not the other way around.

MICHAEL SMITH

Mission Viejo

* In her letter to The Times (Jan. 7), Newport Beach Airport Working Group member Bonnie O’Neil writes that professionals have estimated the air travel demand in Southern California to be as high as 157 million annually by 2015, up from 81 million in 1997. Which professionals? Is it the Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG)?

This is the same SCAG which back in 1982 estimated that flight demand in Southern California would reach 109 million by the year 1995. SCAG was only too high in its estimate by a whopping 36 million passengers. The Times never misses an opportunity to publish letters about “pie in the sky” projected air travel numbers by individuals relying on so-called “experts” to push their agenda. It has systematically failed to publish this factual information casting doubts on SCAG’s credibility and expertise in forecasting air travel demand.

NICHOLAS G. DZEPINA

Mission Viejo

* In Ken Delino’s letter of Jan. 7, he states that March Air Force Base’s effort to operate as a joint use facility (military and civilian cargo) is without local opposition. NIMBYism is alive and well in Riverside. I call to Delino’s attention a Riverside Press Enterprise story of Dec. 21, in which he announces a public relations campaign because “ . . . the newly formed Taxpayers for Responsible Planning fears increased aircraft noise, air pollution, and traffic congestion from the cargo port.”

For the sake of the economic health of the region I hope all the airports Delino references (LAX, El Toro and March) are successful. There is enough passenger and cargo demand to drive each of these facilities. However, pitting one against the other does the region a disservice.

Our airport capacity shortage will be a significant challenge for our leaders during the next decade. A regional approach is the most efficient method to resolve the problem. Our economy demands it.

DAVID L. ELLIS

Ellis/Hart Associates

Irvine

The writer is a consultant to the Airport Working Group.

* Re “Experimental Plane Lands at Closed Base,” Jan. 8:

Before you print the inevitable letters, with the inevitable Newport Beach return addresses, saying that because an airplane made an emergency landing at the former El Toro Marine base, it’s all the more reason to build an airport there, please bear in mind that it makes no more sense to do that than it does to convert a golf course or freeway to an airport because a plane made an emergency landing on one of them.

BRAD McCOWN

Mission Viejo

* Re the Jan. 7 letter about the El Toro airport by Conrad K. Grundke of Laguna Woods: When will he and the citizens in South County finally admit that the vote favoring Measure F was not a vote against an El Toro airport but was against jails or landfills close to towns or residential areas without a two-thirds vote approval?

Letters from residents in South County continue writing that the very clever and misleading Measure F was against El Toro as an airport. When will they start writing the whole truth?

IRVIN C. CHAPMAN

Costa Mesa