Regional Airport Plans Key on El Toro, Ontario

A regional panel recommended Thursday that much of Southern California’s future airport growth be shifted from Los Angeles to Orange County at the retired El Toro Marine base, igniting what is shaping up as a cross-county airport battle.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments voiced strong support for a large commercial airfield at El Toro they say should accommodate nearly 30 million passengers a year, more than even Orange County supporters of the controversial airfield recommend.

In an emotion-charged debate in Los Angeles, a dozen speakers told the panel Thursday that LAX has done all it can and should to accommodate the millions of people flying in and out of Southern California. Adding more passengers and cargo will destroy the lives of airport neighbors already suffering from noise, pollution and traffic congestion, they said.

“I’m not afraid of Orange County,” said Mike Stevens, an Inglewood resident representing LAX Expansion No!. “They believe their quality of life is sanctified, but no more.”

The panel said Ontario, in San Bernardino County, also should share in the burden of absorbing travelers. At the same time, the group of government leaders recommended pulling back expansion plans for Los Angeles International Airport, adding that John Wayne Airport should remain untouched.

“This is one of the most fundamental decisions for Southern California on how aviation will be handled,” said Mayor Mike Gordon of El Segundo, which sits underneath LAX’s flight path. “Decentralization of our aviation system is the right thing to do.”

El Toro opponents from south Orange County left Thursday’s meeting frustrated.

“This whole morning was a debate over El Toro versus LAX,” complained committee member Cathryn DeYoung, the mayor of Laguna Niguel who is fighting an airport at El Toro.

The long-range aviation scenario is designed to guide airport growth in six Southern California counties over the next 25 years. While the panel, made up of government leaders from six counties, does not have the power to approve expansion or construction of any airport, its recommendations carry political weight.

The agency does have considerable influence over the way federal and state funds are spent for access roads, public transit, cargo routes and other related services.

Thursday’s action comes as several prominent El Toro supporters recently softened their stance in favor of turning the mothballed Marine base into an airport that would serve about 18 million passengers a year. Meanwhile, foes of El Toro are planning a county ballot initiative next year to block an airport.

Under growth assumptions and recommendations adopted by the panel, a new airport at El Toro would serve nearly 30 million passengers annually by 2025, with Ontario handling about the same number. That would quadruple business at the inland airport, which last year handled 7 million passengers. John Wayne Airport would maintain its current levels, at 8.4 million passengers annually.

LAX, meantime, would grow from the 67 million passengers it handled last year to 78 million by 2025. Los Angeles is planning to remodel the airport to serve 89 million passengers a year, a number opponents fear could swell much larger. The current airport, they noted, was designed to handle 40 million passengers.

SCAG’s regional board will decide next month whether to adopt the airport recommendations. It would be included in a five-year regional transportation plan that must be submitted to federal officials by June.

At the heart of the debate is how to handle the expected increase in airport demand, especially if LAX can’t or won’t fill it. Officials and businesses around Ontario International Airport spent most of Thursday morning asking for more growth, not less.

Los Angeles airport officials in January unveiled a sweeping $12-billion project to boost passenger traffic and other improvements, including lengthening runways and building a new circular access road and terminal to accommodate as many as 89 million passengers annually. Opponents fear the airport could grow even more than promised if that expansion is approved.

Bill Kogerman, chairman of Orange County’s Citizens for Safe and Health Communities, urged the panel not to push airport problems to south Orange County. He likened such a shift to transplanting a cancerous organ into a healthy patient.

“This ‘fair share’ mentality is corrupt thinking,” he said.

Lake Forest Councilman Richard T. Dixon, an El Toro opponent who chaired SCAG’s committee meeting Thursday, voted for an option that would have capped El Toro at 19 million passengers a year. It was among scenarios presented by regional planners last week that further defused growth among the region’s airports, including keeping Ontario at no more than 20 million passengers a year.

The problem with the plan adopted Thursday, Dixon said, was that planners already warned it would create more air pollution than allowed under federal guidelines. The guidelines must be met or federal transportation funding could be jeopardized, he said.

“I’m clearly not supporting an airport at El Toro,” Dixon said. “But I didn’t want to put federal funding for [local streets] at risk.”

Another Lake Forest councilman on SCAG’s committee, Peter Herzog, faulted regional planners for recommending that John Wayne Airport be kept at 8.4 million passengers, even though the airport’s court-imposed passenger limit expires in 2005. He also tried unsuccessfully to add a statement acknowledging that the agency has no authority over where airports are built or how large they are.

But Meg Waters, a leading El Toro opponent, said the group’s recommendation won’t mean much if Orange County residents back an initiative to kill the airport for good. Anti-airport forces are preparing an initiative for the March 2002 ballot to replace the airport with a large urban park.

“What we just had was a very bloody battle for a phantom hill,” she said.

Times staff writer Doug Shuit contributed to this report.

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Flight Patterns

A panel of regional leaders has recommended that the former El Toro Marine base and Ontario International Airport absorb most of the future regional airport growth. The Southern California Assn. of Governments suggests that the retired Marine base take on as many as 29.7 million passengers a year while John Wayne Airport would be capped at its current annual passenger load of 8.4 million.

Source: Southern California Assn. of Governments