Think Again on El Toro

The Federal Aviation Administration was too late weighing in on the proposed El Toro airport. Now that it has, proponents are taking comfort in a word of support on safety for proposed northerly takeoffs. But the bad news kept coming in as county supervisors were going to vote last week to approve the airport design in a predictable 3-2 split.

It became clear over a period of several days that the FAA saw the potential for significant delays if El Toro operated as intended. That was a likely conclusion anyway, based on what an agency consultant had found earlier. But coming so close to approval day, it raised a host of other questions. These concerns argue for putting off approval of this plan, not simply for a week as the supervisors did, but until a much better design can be presented for full consideration. The alternative to the ram-it-through approach is the likely further erosion in public support and possible defeat next year for any airport plan at the polls.

The FAA clearly has had other things on its mind besides El Toro recently, but it expressed some concerns about regional air traffic way back in 1996 and has had plenty of time since to get more involved in the planning. We argued for that in July 1998. It never really did so, and its recent pronouncements were minimal, leaving both sides to comb what the agency did say for supporting evidence.

The plan now likely goes forward, but the question we have been asking over and over remains: How will this airport have to operate? “We’ll worry about that later” is the now-familiar refrain. This attitude allows doubts to remain and be nurtured. Meanwhile, an anti-airport plan to rezone the base for a park is planned to go before the voters next year.

The FAA did lend support to the notion that northerly takeoffs can be done safely, contrary to the assertions of the nation’s airline pilots. But it’s clear also that putting El Toro into the mix is going to create delays on arrivals at a number of other airports. And in a clumsy procession of events, the FAA ended up producing supplemental information after its initial review analyzed a passenger load for only the first year of operation at 4 million passengers. One did not have to be an aviation expert to see the problem with considering a project much less than its intended size.

All of this now reinforces the notion that the FAA ought to have been more directly involved in sorting out the viability of the El Toro plan at a much earlier stage. The agency’s administrator also promised to hold community hearings, but that never happened despite the depth of community alarm.

It’s not hard to imagine that to operate this airport as planned, some drastic change in John Wayne Airport operations, maybe even an end to commercial flights, now may be required. This is a longstanding dilemma and again raises the old political question of whether this is all really about shifting the county’s airport operations away from Newport Beach to the South County cities. Planners acknowledge a significant drop in commercial service at John Wayne should an El Toro airport be built but haven’t reckoned with the likelihood that airlines won’t want to serve two facilities. But while it’s easy to envision that air space conflicts will necessitate a big change for John Wayne, that airport’s future really is still a mystery.

There’s also the question of what happens with the runway that will remain poised to launch aircraft over the city of Irvine. Planners say it will remain there and won’t be used at all, but what assurance is there that it won’t be, especially if traffic patterns with the preferred flight plan are such a mess? Remember that in 1996 the supervisors’ entire premise for allowing any El Toro airport planning to proceed was that Irvine wouldn’t have overflights.

Last week, when yet another northern city, Fullerton, was poised to drop out of the Orange County Regional Airport Authority, Executive Director Art Bloomer was quoted as saying that his enthusiasm for the airport was stronger than ever. Likewise, Supervisor Chuck Smith saw no problem with flight delays. Gary Simon, the county’s top El Toro planner, actually criticized the FAA report.

All of this brings to mind a World War I song in which a mother dutifully can see no wrong as she reviews the passing parade. “They’re all out of step but Jim,” she says.

Here, those who have lingering questions are considered out of step if they still don’t see where the parade route is supposed to end. But the best choice at this point would be to hold up this line of march at the reviewing stand and rethink the entire plan.