El Toro Vote to Seek Full Navy Cleanup

Orange County voters in November will be asked to urge the Navy to completely clean the former El Toro Marine base before it is sold, thrusting the issue of toxic pollution on the site to center stage as redevelopment plans proceed.

The base, which closed in July 1999, is on the federal Superfund list as one of the nation’s most polluted sites. The Nov. 5 ballot measure asks the Navy to reconcile its cleanup plan for El Toro with studies by Irvine and the county contention that the Navy’s plan is inadequate.

The move Tuesday to involve voters was unanimous among county supervisors--a rarity in El Toro’s tumultuous eight-year planning history.

Public attention on the 4,700-acre base has focused on whether it should be rebuilt as a commercial airport. Voters in March grounded that plan, instead approving zoning for a large urban park.

Supervisors agreed Tuesday that a swift and complete cleanup of El Toro transcends arguments over what should be built there.

A public call for full cleanup could resonate beyond Orange County. Congress is moving toward approving more military base closings in 2005, meaning more communities would be eyeing the Navy’s record at El Toro.

Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Cynthia P. Coad, who drafted the measure, said the county has an obligation to ensure the Navy cleans the land before it is sold.

Unexpected pollution discovered at other closed bases has stalled redevelopment and added millions of dollars in costs.

The Navy plans to dispose of the base by auctioning it off to developers next year. The winning bidders will be permitted to build on 16% of El Toro and will have to donate the rest for public use as a condition of sale.

“Experience at other bases should be a wake-up call to this board and taxpayers throughout the county,” Coad said. “This gives developers a fair shake too, so they know what they’re getting.”

Navy officials were unavailable for comment Tuesday on the ballot measure.

Passage would put pressure on the Navy to defend its cleanup plan, said Greg Hurley, an environmental attorney and past chairman of the El Toro environmental review board.

The Navy’s plan was approved while El Toro was still slated to become an airport. Irvine now hopes to annex the base and expand the amount of development. The 4,000 acres that developers will be required to set aside for public use as part of Irvine’s plan would become a “Great Park,” with golf courses, playing fields, a university, a cultural complex and a cemetery.

County supervisors don’t “want the legacy of being the people behind the bench when the biggest environmental catastrophe in the county went by them,” Hurley said. “It gets Irvine residents thinking about it too. They have to be very careful about what they decide to do out there because it could easily bankrupt the city.”

Some say the ballot measure is a move to shame the Navy into doing a more thorough review of El Toro. If there was no record of hazardous substances on a section of the base, for example, the Navy didn’t test the area, according to the Navy’s own review. The Navy barred the county from taking its own soil samples.

“It’s an attempt to put political pressure on them,” said Aimee Houghton, associate director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, a Northern California group that monitors base cleanup nationwide. “One of the biggest lessons people have learned is to get assurances upfront that they will be getting cleanup consistent with their land-use plan for the base.”

In November 2000, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly passed a similar referendum demanding the Navy do a better job of cleaning up Hunters Point, a shipyard on San Francisco Bay that was closed in 1977 and that is also on the Superfund list. Cleanup of Hunters Point remains unfinished.

“[The measure] passed, but we can’t say for certain that it had an effect,” Houghton said. “If the Navy was susceptible to these kinds of things, they never would have let themselves get to the point they are at with these bases.”

The National Assn. of Installation Developers, a Washington group that advises communities on the base conversion process, has been pushing the military to release better information about contaminants on bases early on.

“You are having ballot measures and things like that because communities are not always getting quality information,” said Tim Ford, the association’s deputy executive director.

Sometimes, political pressure is the only way to get the government to act, said Gene Stuard, vice president of the Forrestale Group, based in Louisiana. The company assesses the damage to property caused by contamination. Orange County’s ballot measure is an “excellent approach to the problem,” he said.

State environmental officials wouldn’t comment on the ballot measure, but said they will conduct confirmation field tests on the base before allowing it to be transferred to private ownership.

“They will have to go back and clean anything that is still contaminated or we won’t approve the transfer,” said Ron Baker, spokesman for the Department of Toxic Substances at the California Environmental Protection Agency. If contamination is found later, the Navy will have to come back and remove it.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, who fought the airport but backed Coad’s ballot measure, said he will campaign for its passage. But that still won’t assure complete cleanup at El Toro, where toxic dumping took place for 56 years.

“The base will never be fully cleaned up,” Spitzer said. “I don’t know if it is even scientifically or economically possible.”