LAX Area Residents Back El Toro Airport

More than 500 people from across Southern California jammed a hearing Tuesday on a proposed El Toro airport in what has become a contentious regional battle over whether Orange County will help alleviate growing air passenger demand through the year 2025.

A busload of people opposing expansion of Los Angeles International Airport spoke passionately about the need to preserve homes and communities around the Los Angeles airfield, and called on Orange County and its elected leaders to shoulder a share of the Southland’s air traffic burden.

But a huge contingent from south Orange County complained bitterly about the prospect of aircraft noise and suggested an airport at El Toro would harm the health and safety of area residents. They did so knowing it was a foregone conclusion that three of the five county supervisors will vote later this month to develop the 4,700-acre former Marine air station as an international airport.

It was just one in a series of milestones this week in the El Toro airport debate.

Today, groups that oppose an El Toro airport expect to deliver enough signatures to the registrar of voters to put an alternative plan for an urban park on the countywide ballot. The proposed initiative would replace airport zoning with parkland zoning.

And on Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration is expected to deliver its long-delayed analysis of air traffic issues for the El Toro site.

Opponents, and even some supporters, have questioned the safety of flight patterns proposed for the airport. They contend that takeoffs to the north would send jets into one of the busiest air corridors in the nation and takeoffs to the east would send planes too close to mountainous terrain.

The slim pro-airport majority on the board is hoping for a favorable finding from the FAA’s report, coming days before supervisors are scheduled to vote on the El Toro environmental impact report Sept. 17. The county’s plans call for an international commercial airport that would serve 28.8 million passengers a year by 2025, although board Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad has suggested building a terminal that would handle only 18.8 million passengers annually.

On Tuesday, dozens of Westchester and Inglewood residents opposed to expansion of Los Angeles International Airport were bused to the hearing and urged supervisors to “share the airport burden” by building an airport at the former base.

Marie Hodgson of Westchester said she was “an Air Force brat” and has no hearing problems--disputing a common anti-El Toro complaint--after living on various air bases. She is afraid that a proposed LAX expansion could force her and her neighbors to give up their homes.

“El Toro is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Hodgson said.

But Laguna Woods Councilman Bert Hack, who lives in the retirement community of Leisure World, said his city lies under the proposed flight path and its elderly residents would suffer considerable health risks because of noise and jet pollution.

“We are not interested in being killed,” Hack told supervisors, adding that the three pro-airport supervisors on the board were essentially telling Laguna Woods residents to “drop dead.”

Organizers for a south Orange County coalition of nine cities fighting the airport said they plan to turn in 175,000 signatures to the registrar’s office today in support of an initiative for an urban park rather than an airport.

The number of signatures is 2 1/2 times the 71,206 needed to qualify the Orange County Central Park and Nature Preserve initiative for the March ballot. If successful, it would remove the El Toro airport designation from the county’s General Plan. The initiative calls for a large urban park, schools, health-care facilities, museums, industrial buildings and sport facilities.

Two weeks ago, a San Diego appeals court breathed new life into the initiative when it stayed a lower court ruling that effectively killed efforts to put the initiative on the ballot. A final decision is pending.

The airport debate has been an emotional battle pitting mostly north Orange County areas against a core segment of the newer south county cities. But in recent months, residents of Inglewood, Westchester and other Los Angeles County areas have become fixtures at public hearings on the airport.