El Toro Airport Debate Spills Outside O.C.

Friends and foes of plans for a new commercial airport at the now-closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station will meet Tuesday in Irvine for a debate sponsored by a Santa Monica radio station, evidence of growing interest outside Orange County in the property’s fate.

Seven hundred free tickets for the event were snapped up in less than a week, fueled by Web site postings promoting the debate. Audience members will be allowed to ask on-air questions of panelists.

The demand for tickets surprised event organizers at KCRW-FM (89.9), which will broadcast the 6:30 p.m. debate on “Which Way, L.A.?” a radio program hosted by Warren Olney. It will be the first time the show has broadcast live from Orange County.

“This is an issue of importance to the entire region,” Olney said of the hourlong event at UC Irvine’s Barclay Theater. “This is one of those issues that cross jurisdictional boundaries.”

Anti-airport activists say they’re ready for a showdown. They argue that future airline traffic can be handled at existing airports in the region without building such a large facility in the middle of south Orange County.

“It’s about time the region paid attention to this issue,” said Meg Waters, spokeswoman for a 10-city coalition that opposes the new airport. “El Toro is unwanted, unneeded and unsafe and I’m glad all of Southern California will have the opportunity to hear why.”

Supporters say an airport at El Toro is needed as pressure mounts for more airline flights and to handle the growing volume of air cargo in the region. Without the new airport, they contend, pressure for expansion will increase at Los Angeles International Airport, John Wayne Airport and Ontario International Airport.

“This is a regional problem that is finally getting regional attention,” said James Campbell, Orange County Supervisor Chuck Smith’s chief of staff. Smith will appear in Tuesday’s radio debate in support of a new airport.

Amid growing opposition, a majority of Orange County supervisors has pushed for seven years for the airport at El Toro. It is planned to be the No. 2 airport in Southern California, second only to LAX. It would serve 28 million passengers a year by 2020; LAX last year handled 67 million passengers.

John Wayne Airport, with one commercial runway on 500 acres of land, is limited by a court agreement to handling no more than 8.4 million passengers a year through 2005.

Plans to expand LAX have stumbled in the past year amid heightened public protests as more Los Angeles County residents demand that the burden of future airport growth be spread to outlying airports.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted recently to oppose the current LAX expansion plan, which would enlarge terminals and taxiways there to handle 89 million passengers annually.

Panelists for Tuesday’s program are stalwarts of the El Toro debate.

Smith, the Orange County supervisor, and Barbara Lichman, attorney for the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group, will argue in favor of the airport’s construction. Irvine Mayor Larry Agran and activist Len Kranser of Dana Point will argue against it.

South Orange County airport foes have rallied behind a plan to transform much of the 4,700-acre former Marine base into a park, wildlife habitat and nature preserve. That plan also calls for rehabilitating and leasing warehouses, existing homes and apartments on the base.

Anti-airport activists are collecting signatures in an attempt to place a Central Park and Nature Preserve Initiative on the March 2002 ballot. It would be the fourth airport-related vote on El Toro since airport zoning was approved for the former base in 1994.

Following the example of Orange County park proponents, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter has proposed buying land around LAX, including about 500 existing homes, to be zoned for parkland instead of a cargo terminal.

Earlier this month, Los Angeles County officials asked a judge to require the Federal Aviation Administration and Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that runs LAX, to hold additional public hearings on the LAX expansion plan outside Los Angeles--particularly in areas with regional airports, such as Orange and San Bernardino counties.

KCRW reaches about 120,000 listeners a week from southern Santa Barbara County south to northern San Diego County, plus the desert communities to the east of Los Angeles.