National Guard Units to Use Part of El Toro

The military plans to return to the closed El Toro Marine base, with an Air National Guard communications squadron moving to a corner of the facility by the end of the year and an Army Guard unit following suit, a military spokesman said Thursday.

The move will improve the air unit’s combat readiness by better accommodating sophisticated communications equipment, including satellite dishes, the Air Force said.

The 222nd Combat Communications Squadron, which is currently sandwiched between the Costa Mesa Freeway and a heavily developed area in Costa Mesa, will move to a 32-acre site at the northeast corner of El Toro in two to three months, said Air National Guard Lt. Col. Gary Aten.

Aten, civil engineer for the squadron’s parent unit, the 162nd Combat Communications Group, said that Air Force officials in Washington recently approved the move, more than 10 years after it was proposed. The 222nd Squadron needed a new location because the freeway, John Wayne Airport and development that surround its present site make it difficult for airmen to train with sophisticated electronic equipment.

The unit, which does not fly aircraft, has about 100 airmen and airwomen assigned to it, he said, and 28 of its members served in the war with Iraq.

Aten said Army Guard units stationed at two Orange County armories will also be moved to El Toro, alongside the Air Force unit. But National Guard officials have made no decisions on which Army units will be transferred and the number of soldiers involved, he said.

Negotiations to acquire a site at El Toro have continued quietly over the years, first with Orange County and then Irvine officials, Aten said.

The Navy recognized Orange County as the lead redevelopment agency for the base, and the Board of Supervisors in turn authorized Irvine to negotiate land usage on behalf of the county.

Aten said Guard officials had been looking for a new base for the 222nd Squadron since 1988. After Pentagon officials announced the closure of the Tustin and El Toro Marine bases in 1991 and 1993, the Guard sounded out the Navy about moving the squadron.

“We submitted a request to the Navy in 1991 for space at the Tustin [Marine] base, but the city [Tustin] said our needs weren’t compatible with their plans for the base. Then we talked about El Toro,” he said.

Dan Jung, Irvine’s director of strategic programs, said he began talking with Air National Guard officials six months ago about moving the squadron to El Toro.

“We worked together with them to make it possible,” said Jung.

The move will not be completed until the Guard does an environmental study. Aten said there are a “few minor contaminations” that the Navy will have to clean up. “We know what they are: hydraulic fluid and the like,” he said.

El Toro was closed in 1999 after 57 years as a Marine air base.

Thousands of pilots trained at the 4,700-acre facility, learning to fly every fixed-wing aircraft in the Marine Corps inventory from the Corsair gull-winged fighter of World War II to the F-18A Hornet, which was used in the Gulf War, Afghanistan and the war with Iraq.

County voters in 2002, rejecting plans for a commercial airport at the site, adopted zoning that called for parks, sports fields and other public uses. Irvine hopes to annex the property and add residential and commercial development.