El Toro Sales May Hasten Base Cleanup

The Navy hopes to collect enough money from this fall’s auction of the former El Toro Marine base to pay for accelerated environmental cleanup there and at other closed bases, officials said Monday.

At a first-of-its-kind real estate forum at the base Monday, Navy officials rolled out details of what will be the largest Internet auction of federal property conducted by the General Services Administration.

Some 3,700 acres will be offered for sale, with 60% earmarked for open space and public uses. Industry officials estimate the base will bring between $800 million and $1.2 billion.

Sale proceeds will go into a fund earmarked for cleanup of Navy, Army and Air Force facilities. Navy officials said Friday that they expect El Toro land to be cleaned up within three years at a cost of $70 million.

Attention has focused on El Toro’s cleanup because many areas to be set aside for public uses are on land with known or suspected contamination.

“With the base cleanup fund getting larger, we’ll be able to accelerate the cleanup schedule not only at El Toro but at all of the other bases, many of them in California,” said Wayne Arny, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for installations and the environment.

Cleanups Slowed

Since 1989, the military has closed about 100 bases nationally, including 30 in California. Cleanup was paid for out of general funds, where it competed with the purchase of aircraft, ships and weapons systems.

As a result, there have been complaints of slow cleanup and delayed redevelopment of bases, many of which sat empty for years.

That won’t happen at El Toro, officials said Monday.

“The Navy is committed to cleanup in a short time frame, [and] that’s not the way it’s gone in the past decade,” said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), who has pushed for public sale of the base for 10 years. “This isn’t the usual process.”

An updated environmental review of El Toro released Monday showed areas scattered around the base that still must be cleaned. The largest portion, encompassing the southwest corner, will be leased instead of sold to developers because it lies above contaminated groundwater that could take decades to fully clean.

Other off-limits areas include a 6-acre site near the runways where benzopyrene was found, a 9-acre former construction dump near where 1,100 homes will be built, and two hazardous-waste landfills that must be capped.

Federal and state regulators have final say over when base property can be deeded to its new owners. Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Toxic Substance Control have asked for more testing in several areas.

Delays Still Possible

A lawsuit filed last year also could delay the auction. Filed by the Airport Working Group of Orange County, the suit challenged an earlier Navy environmental review as inadequate. The group supported building a commercial airport at the base, a plan rejected last year by Orange County voters.

Court hearings are scheduled for this summer, though the case could be settled before then, Arny said.

The Navy’s sale plan calls for developers to deed large portions of the land they buy to the city of Irvine, which is in the process of annexing the base. A $353-million mix of developer fees, assessments and bonds will cover the costs of building and maintaining parkland, open space, a public exposition center and sports fields.

Also unveiled at Monday’s real estate forum was a new Web site for land-sale information: www.heritagefields.com.