Taking Off on County’s El Toro Airport ‘Facts’

The county’s plan for El Toro is a joke. The pilots have told the county they will not depart either north or east from an El Toro airport. The courts have invalidated the aviation easements required to land from the south. The Maestre report shows the noise to be much more pervasive than the county claims. And the county has admitted that the airport pollution and noise cannot be mitigated.

Add to this the fact that there is no demonstrable need for a second airport.

The number of John Wayne passengers can be doubled without physical expansion or extended hours.

The projected county population growth over the next 20 years is just 13%. Yet the county plan claims we must provide for five times the current number of John Wayne passengers.

In March county voters will hand supervisors Cynthia P. Coad, Jim Silva and Chuck Smith a stunning defeat, and perhaps the county can resume doing the business of the people.

Michael Smith

Mission Viejo

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In your July 18 article about the radio broadcast on the proposed El Toro airport, you printed quite a lengthy quote from Barbara Lichman.

I thought you missed the best quote of the evening by her when she said, “Buses create more pollution than airplanes. . . .”

Hard to imagine that this Airport Working Group is the one that intends to give us “Just the Facts.”

But easy to imagine when you remember that these same people state that an airport serving 30 million passengers a year will actually reduce air pollution in the region.

George Somogyi

Laguna Niguel

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I am bemused by spokespersons for those opposed to the county’s plan to convert El Toro into Orange County’s second commercial airport.

In one breath they say Orange County doesn’t need a second commercial airport because compared to other Southern California areas, its growth over the next 20 years will be relatively small.

In the next breath they say send Orange County’s growing air travel demand to Ontario or LAX via special bus or high-speed rail.

One wonders which it is they are talking about, growth or no growth?

When I went to work at what was then the Orange County Airport in 1970, it was served by two short-haul airlines flying to the Bay Area, Las Vegas and Tucson/Phoenix. There were about 1 million passengers per year.

Thirty years later, what is now John Wayne Airport is served by 11 airlines and two commuter lines with nearly 8 million passengers per year going to destinations thousands of miles away. There is a direct correlation between growth in air transportation demand and growth in population, employment and disposable income, factors Orange County, especially south Orange County, has in growing abundance.

I wonder how anyone observing the new housing tracts, shopping malls and commercial projects being developed in southern Orange County can say that Orange County air transportation demand will not continue to grow.

John Wayne Airport now serves about half of Orange County’s air passenger demand and a much lesser portion of its air cargo demand. As population and industry continue to grow, this capacity shortfall can do nothing but grow.

What will not grow is the ability of 500-acre John Wayne Airport to accommodate this growth or the ability of other regional airports like LAX and Ontario to continue absorbing Orange County’s growing passenger and cargo overflow.

It’s high time Orange County assumed its fair share of the regional air transportation burden. It can do just that at El Toro with an airport that does not place an unreasonable burden on anyone.

What is needed is for the leaders of the anti-airport coalition to stop trying to foist off on the public some phony park plan but seek a reasonable El Toro airport operating agreement the way Newport Beach did with the county over John Wayne Airport in 1985.

Norm Ewers

Irvine

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I have lived in Orange County for 40 years. I have no political ties to any group involved in the El Toro airport issue.

Recently people may have received a mailer from the county claiming “Just the Facts” on the airport issue.

As a voter, I have done some research so that my vote is not out of ignorance. I suggest others do the same.

I believe that supervisors Cynthia P. Coad, Jim Silva and Chuck Smith have finally stepped over the line and have called us all fools in this recent campaign.

The “Just the Facts” campaign is half-truths at best, attacking the gullibility of people who have no idea of the real facts concerning the issue. Real facts can be found at www.eltoroairport.org.

After a little investigation, people will discover the truth. The county’s conclusion on air quality and pollution lacks any scientific basis and defies common sense.

It offers just four lines of meaningless garble on safety. Its conclusions on the noise impact are so flawed they cannot withstand any professional engineering logic for technical competence or accuracy.

The financial impact will be enormous and possibly devastating. They ignore privatization and the billions of dollars that will have to be spent concerning aviation easements.

Mike Kelly

Aliso Viejo

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The Great Park planned for El Toro is a farce, if not an outright fraud.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that South County really needs a Great Park. The first thing to be considered is where to put it.

The first place I’d look would be among the existing parks. The last place I’d consider would be some uninteresting piece of flat land next to an industrial and commercial area where many millions would have to be squandered destroying billions of dollars of valuable assets.

Then, when that is done, more millions would be needed to clean up the toxic waste left by underground storage of aviation fuel and other hazardous organic materials.

Somewhere between these choices I’d look a few miles down the road toward Laguna Canyon, where there is empty land with rolling hills and some outcroppings of sandstone with interesting caves carved out by the winds.

Unfortunately, the better alternatives won’t happen because the Irvine Co. owns that land, which may, someday, be valuable developable property.

David Feign

Santa Ana

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The county’s “Just the Facts” program designed to sway voters to vote for an airport at El Toro is named incorrectly.

Based on the one-sided facts the county is selecting to sell the public, this program should be called “Just the County’s Selected Facts.”

Nowhere in the county’s glossy mailer were “facts” from their flight demonstration or their noise consultant’s report, which cited incredible noise levels for Leisure World and Aliso Viejo residents.

Instead, the worn-out “14K buffer-zone” fact is listed, totally ignoring that planes must fly for miles at low altitudes over residential communities en route to the proposed airport.

It was so noisy during the county’s flight demonstration that even pro-airport Supervisor Chuck Smith commented on it. Where is this “fact” in the county’s mailer?

Nowhere in the glossy mailer did the county note the “fact” that an airport will affect senior citizens in Leisure World with high noise levels and air pollution.

The only “facts” that will be seen in the county’s desperate public relations blitz are the ones they hope will sell us on their disgusting airport plan.

Mike Baron

Aliso Viejo

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The San Clemente Ocean Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary last weekend. As a volunteer, I look forward to participating in the signature event of my community. The festival is a nonprofit, family-oriented weekend that allows all ages to participate in sporting events and many other activities. The proceeds are donated to nonprofit Orange County organizations and provide scholarships to graduating seniors in the area.

This year the attendees were bombarded by the “Stop the El Toro Development” solicitors. They were everywhere, asking me not once or twice but numerous times if I would sign their petition.

I’m not a supporter of the El Toro airport, but after the sometimes rude intrusion of the solicitors, this group does not have my support. Their presence was disruptive to a very special event.

Arlene Button

San Clemente

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Recently I received the county’s first piece of its $3-million PR campaign to promote the proposed airport at El Toro.

Being a Web site designer, I checked out their site to see what the “facts” were. It was nice-looking, complete with a fact of the day that popped up when I visited. The only problem was that the fact was mathematically incorrect.

The Web site states that 6 million Orange County residents use outlying airports per year. It further states that John Wayne Airport handles 60% of Orange County traffic. Since John Wayne handles 7.4 million people, this leads to only about 4.8 million Orange County residents using outlying airports for better fares, closer proximity and variety of flights.

I guess this is a sample of the type of invalid “facts” we can expect from a county that thinks a new international airport will improve Orange County air quality. When I tried to comment on the site error, there was no place for feedback.

John Berry

Aliso Viejo

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Your July 17 editorial concerning the Southern California Assn. of Governments’ admitted 4-million annual passenger overstatement of Orange County’s utilization of LAX is not the first instance of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) forecasting supporting the need for an airport at El Toro.

SCAG has a long and dismal record of overstating the region’s air travel demand.

Meanwhile, demand in 2001 is actually declining, which is consistent with the trends in business travel shown in a recent study by the Business Travel Coalition of Radnor, Pa.

That study has found companies say “air travel has become increasingly crowded, unpleasant and expensive . . . leading both employees and employers to seek alternatives, such as videoconferencing and Web casting.”

SCAG’s 2020 forecast would require an average annual increase substantially exceeding all historical precedent. Even using historical growth rates, which are grossly inflated because of the more rapid population growth and the dot-com economic “bubble” behind us, this forecast would be about 30 million annual passengers too high.

Coincidentally, 30 million passengers is the demand being assigned to an airport at El Toro. Absent a showing of demand, the case for an airport at El Toro evaporates.

Tristan Krogius

Monarch Beach