The
OC Weekly El Toro Watch - 1998 Archives
The
OC Weekly El Toro Watch - 1998 Archives
OC Weekly, and principally writer Anthony Pignataro, has been producing a series of "El Toro Watch" articles, since January of 1997, covering a wide range of issues related to El Toro reuse. Through the cooperation of the paper, the El Toro Airport Info Site will carry future pieces of the series and archive back articles. The OC Weekly website is found at http://www.ocweekly.com
The articles are published electronically here as a public service. Statements made by the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of the El Toro Airport Info Site Team.
STRANGE BUT TRUE: One of the most dangerous places for airplanes is on the ground. Loaded with fuel and people, trundling around a busy airport, ground-bound aircraft occasionally collide. That’s why one of the chief concerns of air traffic controllers is ground traffic; why airports have towers filled with sensitive radar equipment; and why modern airports have long, parallel runways, preventing landing aircraft from crossing paths with departing aircraft. So obvious is the danger that officials in San Francisco have reportedly proposed tearing up intersecting runways at that city’s international airport.
But on Dec. 9 -- the same day county officials told the public noise from the proposed international airport wouldn’t affect anyone living nearby -- county planners released "Technical Report 5: Facility Requirements." The report says precisely the opposite of what is true: El Toro’s intersecting runways won’t be a safety problem at all. In fact, the report concludes, "crossing runways actually allow greater flexibility in choosing appropriate routes based on wind conditions and noise mitigation issues."
The report also concludes that commercial aircraft flying out of El Toro can "operate at or near maximum payload to a range of domestic and international destinations" -- a clever way of skirting the results of the county’s own Jeppeson Sanderson report. That study, which emerged last summer, showed all airliners taking off to the east would suffer serious weight penalties.
"The future airport at El Toro can operate safely and efficiently as a regional airport offering direct international access," the report asserted. ["P]roposed operations can be conducted within all FAA safety standards."
For the past two years, as regular readers of this paper recall, the county’ s two largest commercial pilots unions, the Air Transport Association, numerous local airline pilots and Mary Schiavo -- the former Department of Transportation inspector general who blew the whistle on Valujet -- all concluded that El Toro’s runways are dangerous. Their solution -- potentially adding billions of dollars to El Toro’s start-up costs -- would require removing the two east-west runways and paving new north-south runways.
Although the Weekly obtained draft studies earlier in the year showing
the county at least considered ripping out the east-west runways, county
officials continue to deny there is anything inherently wrong with El Toro’s
runway layout.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 89
Sounds Unreasonable
By Anthony Pignataro, December 18, 1998
People living close to the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station are wrong to think aircraft at the proposed international airport will keep them awake all night with the blaring roar from screaming jet turbines. At least, that's what county officials said in a Dec. 8 press conference as they released a new noise report. And the Los Angeles Times was right there, reporting to its 200,000-plus Orange County readers that the new airport would be as loud as everyday conversation.
"Our preliminary analysis shows that there will be no existing homes and no public schools in the commercial 65 CNEL noise footprint at El Toro in 2020," said El Toro program manager Courtney Wiercioch in a county press release. "The bottom line is that the vast majority of Orange County's 2.6 million residents, north and south, will experience little or no noise from a commercial airport."
Alongside its story, the Times ran an unbelievably simplistic graph--prepared by county spin doctors who must feel residents are as sophisticated as inbred monkeys--comparing the number of homes, people and schools affected by five airports. Of course, El Toro was the only airport showing zeros in each category.
The county swears by the CNEL metric, which averages the proposed airport's noise over a 24-hour period. According to state law, the county has to mitigate the impacts for anyone living in an area receiving at least 65 decibels of noise on the CNEL scale. The county's determination that no one lives in this zone means they won't have to pay for anyone's sound insulation.
By relying on the CNEL scale, the county makes the airport seem a lot quieter than it actually will be. Anyone reading the Times would get the idea that most residents living near El Toro would hear between 50 and 64 decibels from the airport--roughly the equivalent of normal conversation.
This is nonsense. The 65-decibel CNEL figure is an average number--if you listened to the airport for 24 hours straight, the sound would average out to 65 decibels. But airports--actually, airplanes--produce noise in brief bursts. In a rare briefing Wiercioch gave to the pro-airport Orange County Regional Airport Authority in June, the single-event noise level produced by a Boeing 757 was 85 decibels. That's the sound residents all over South County will hear in the few moments it takes for the plane to pass in and out of earshot.
To people walking through busy traffic intersections, that 85-decibel event won't seem like much. But to people in quiet 3 a.m. bedrooms, the event will be as invasive as someone switching on a blender.
It's understandable why the county isn't playing up single-event
noise data--to do so would confirm residents' worst fears about what the
airport would do to the neighborhoods. So why did the Times (and
The Orange County Register and Daily Pilot) ignore it as
well?
El Toro Airport Watch No. 88
The Blob Comes to OC!
By Will Swaim, December 11, 1998
For decades, Angelenos have fought over LAX, a B-movie blob of an airport that chews up middle-class communities and defecates poor ones. This week, the fight spilled into Orange County, when LA mayor Dick Riordan came to Irvine to sell locals on the county's plan to build El Toro International Airport.
Riordan's endorsement surprised almost no one. When OC officials first proposed building the fifth-largest airport in the nation at El Toro, LA County officials attacked the plan as stupid, given Riordan's imperial vision of LAX. Then Riordan's dream ran into the reality of the Los Angeles City Council. The mayor's council opponents say LA has too long shouldered the regional air-traffic burden; now, they say, it's someone else's turn. By adopting the El Toro cause as his own, Riordan can prove that other SoCal cities are doing their fair share--and then feel free to feed more LA neighborhoods to the Gorgon of LAX.
What did surprise observers was Riordan's rhetorical tactic: building El Toro fulfills a moral obligation to the poor, Riordan told fat cats gathered at a $250-per-plate dinner at the Irvine Hyatt on Dec. 7 (a day that will live in infamy!).
"Morally, we owe everybody the right to be part of the middle class, to be part of the American Dream," Riordan said. "The ultimate goal is not increasing the capacity of our airports. The ultimate goal is creating quality jobs."
Hopefully, you've cleaned up the Cherry Coke that just shot through your nose. After all, LA could blindfold OC and tie all 4.8 million of our hands behind our 2.4 million backs, and we'd still kick LA's ass when it comes to quality job creation. You'd have to be a complete idiot to swallow that one. Enter Supervisor Jim Silva, who once pointed out that El Toro would dovetail nicely with welfare reform because airports produce low-paying, entry-level jobs. But it's an argument that demands evidence, evidence LAX provides in terrible abundance. Far from producing good jobs for the poor, LAX has transformed middle-class neighborhoods into poor ones. Ask Paul Eckles, who was for 24 years the city manager of Inglewood, a city that lies directly beneath LAX's flight paths.
"LAX virtually destroyed Inglewood and Lennox," Eckles says. "Neighborhoods that were okay until the jets started flying in 1959 went into the toilet after that."
As Exhibit A, Eckles offers Inglewood's notorious Darby-Dixon neighborhood. Originally a middle-class community for pilots and stewardesses based at LAX, the neighborhood collapsed under relentless pounding: jet noise, air pollution, automobile traffic.
"The city poured huge resources into the area--extra police, assessment districts, improved lighting," Eckles says. Attempts to sound-insulate homes were more successful but mean that residents fleeing jet noise are confined to their homes--a fact, Eckles observes, that has destroyed public life in large parts of the city.
"Nothing has really solved the problem," Eckles says. "Neighborhoods under those flight paths simply can't sustain an American lifestyle." Inglewood recently received a $26 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to buy all homes in Darby-Dixon and relocate the residents. The land will either be turned over to what are euphemistically called "noise-compatible uses" or left barren, like the sand dunes of Westchester, another middle-class community that officials sacrificed to LAX in the 1960s.
If this were a movie, we'd end by telling you what became of the
major players. Eckles' death match with LAX led him to his current job:
he's head of ETRPA, the South County cities' organized effort to kill El
Toro International Airport while it's still on the drawing board. Riordan
is trying to peddle ecological and social disasters to fools and liars
on a new frontier.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 87
Lessons from Long Beach
By Anthony Pignataro, December 4, 1998
Five miles from the Los Alamitos Air Station on the border of Orange and Los Angeles counties is a massive commercial airport that could meet the air-traffic demand county planners say is growing so quickly that they're willing to build the nation's fifth-largest international airport in the nation in the middle of South County. Once known as Daugherty Field - it was named after Earl Daugherty, the local aviation pioneer - Long Beach Airport has been operational since 1923. A mere 150 acres in size that year, Long Beach Airport now covers 1,166 acres with five runways between 4,200 and 10,000 feet long. Capable of handling a few hundred thousand commercial operations every year, Long Beach Airport sees only 5 percent of that traffic.
That's because decades of lawsuits from residents over aircraft noise have hobbled the airport to a maximum of just 41 operations per day, with a ban on night flights and any but the quietest commercial jets available. You can count the commercial airlines that park at Long Beach on one hand: American, America West and WinAir, which began flying on Nov. 1.
Known as the nation's largest general aviation airport, Long Beach is also one of the most underused. As a result, Long Beach has one of the smallest, quietest terminals around. Virtually unchanged since 1941, the terminal is an official City of Long Beach Cultural Heritage Landmark.
On one sunny Wednesday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we drove the 405 to check out the Long Beach Airport. What we found after opening the restored glass-pane entrance door was more museum than airport - whitewashed walls covered with Art Deco printing, elaborate tile covering the staircases, and nearly as much space dedicated to 50-year-old Press-Telegram articles and photos as ticketing.
Just four planes stood on the tarmac, outside the terminal, which passengers still have to cross on foot. In the grassy field inside the box made by four of the five runways, the MetLife blimp tugged silently at its tether.
Most people at the airport were upstairs in the Prop Room, a restaurant and bar recalling the days of Lindbergh and Doolittle. Customers dine in front of a panoramic bay window overlooking the field. A few more people were on the roof, seated in plastic chairs beneath the control tower, watching an airliner prepare for departure.
For all of Long Beach's quaint homage to the past, the airport is actually a pointed warning about the future of commercial air travel. Since the late 1950s, when the city talked of turning Daugherty Field into a major commercial hub, residents have battled their elected officials for control of the skies. In 1981, they won a 15-operation-per-day cap on the airport, but they have watched the cap increase steadily to 41 after a succession of airline-sponsored lawsuits. As it is, the latest cap expires in 2001.
The Marines are still in charge of El Toro, yet the lawsuits against
the county are already starting. Should the county succeed in getting commercial
planes into El Toro, they can expect more litigation, demanding curfews
and restrictions that will prevent the airport from delivering everything
that's being promised. Those restrictions will in turn bring more litigation
from the carriers. Looking at Long Beach's history, it's clear the good
folks at the County Hall of Administration can expect to be in court over
El Toro for at least the next half-century.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 86
County: "Facts Are Stupid'
By Anthony Pignataro, November 27, 1998
There's no question that county El Toro planning officials are zealous, maybe not as zealous as George Argyros -- the bazillionaire developer who would have commercial cargo planes operating at El Toro today -- but zealous enough to hurdle facts in the pursuit of their agenda.
Las year, for example, a Superior Court judge ruled that the county's Environmental Impact Report minimized the actual effects of building and operating El Toro International Airport. County CEO Jan Mittermeier first insisted that nothing was wrong -- and then made the corrections.
Two recent letters to the county show planners are still cutting corners. The first, dated Oct. 16 but made public only after the Nov. 3 election, came from the Airline Transport Association (ATA). The group, which lobbies on behalf of major U.S. airlines, obviously has a huge stake in any future airport development at El Toro.
"[W]e would like to make you aware of some very serious concerns regarding the El Toro master plan," ATA Western regional director Neil Bennett, who also sits on the county's El Toro Citizens Advisory Commission, wrote to El Toro program manager Courtney Wiercioch.
Bennett outlined three major problems the ATA has with the county's preferred airport option, a 24 million-passenger-per-year airport at El Toro. First, Bennett found fault with the county's desire to operate El Toro and John Wayne simultaneously, calling the system "an inefficient use of airport and airline resources." Bennett then ridiculed the county's plan for a "rail link" between the airports, saying "the costs of constructing and operating such a system would be excessive." Bennett also raised questions about future flight restrictions and nighttime curfews -- a potentiality pro-airport politicians enjoy using to placate South County opponents. "The airlines consider any such restrictions unacceptable."
So much for the county's insistence that the nation's airlines are onboard.
Twelve days later, Mittermeier received a letter from U.S. Marine Corps Colonel S. F. Mugg, El Toro's commanding officer, concerning county plans for flight demonstrations.
"As a reminder, to date, the United States Marine Corps has not received from the [Board of Supervisors] any formal request to conduct cargo-flight operations or a flight demonstration," wrote Mugg.
Translation: don't forget the Marines still operate El Toro.
This kind of ignorance of facts is nothing new at the county Hall
of Administration. So it's no wonder Irvine attorney and onetime airport
salesman Hugh Hewitt adopted one of the Weekly's best ideas in his column
in the Nov. 15 Los Angeles Times: "Many now suspect that it is crucial
for the local GOP to fashion and sell the compromise that John Wayne will
stay small and El Toro will remain empty."
El Toro Airport Watch No. 83
The Fear Factory
By Anthony Pignataro, November 6, 1998
Newport Beach could end the fight over the El Toro International Airport today. City officials could form an alliance with South County officials and call for a moratorium on all airport construction and expansion in the county. That moratorium would give South County residents what they want (no airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station) and Newport Beach residents what they want (no expansion of John Wayne Airport [JWA]). The new alliance could go on to engage in the truly progressive work of forcing the county to fund clean transportation links to nearby airports in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
In August, the South County’s El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) made precisely such an offer in a mailing to 44,947 Newport Beach residents. Of the 284 people who responded, 60 percent said they liked the idea of cooperation.
But the other 40 percent responded in ways that illustrate how distant the goal of compromise is. "What a bunch of B.S!" wrote one resident. "You folks in South County want all the benefits but none of the headaches! Where will you be when John Wayne needs to be expanded?"
Another resident responded that he and his neighbors are "sick of being asked to go this alone, and we are certainly not stupid enough to believe the political speak about some alternate solution that will, by chance, surface just in time to prevent John Wayne Airport expansion from destroying our city."
ETRPA’s olive branch seemed to have wilted. But the worst was yet to come as Newport Beach’s pro-El Toro forces moved to intimidate those who’d responded positively to the offer of compromise. On Oct. 8, Newport Beach’s Airport Working Group (AWG) president Tom Naughton filed a public-records request with South County, asking for copies of all responses to the August letter. Several residents had specifically asked ETRPA to keep their names confidential; to them, Naughton’s request might have seemed a heavy-handed effort to shut down talk of compromise inside the city. Naughton himself lamely explained that he only wanted ETRPA’s new mailing list, something he could get from his own City Hall.
ASW is one of the most hysterical and cynical pro-airport groups in the county. It formed nearly 20 years ago to block the expansion of JWA in the 1980s. In the end, the group could only secure a risky noise-abatement departure procedure, a precarious passenger cap, and a ban on night flights. But the cap evaporates in 2005. To make matters worse, AWG and city officials constantly parrot county projections that air-travel demand will explode in 20 years. That’s highly combustible arithmatic (sic), and it leads too many Newport Beach residents to the conclusion that a new, massive international airport is absolutely necessary—at El Toro, Los Alamitos or [shudder] JWA.
That was the clear message of a pro-El Toro Airport mailer that Naughton’s AWG sent out to Newport residents last week. Emblazoned with a bald eagle’s head and the words "Extremely Urgent" and "Open Immediately," the new mailer asks residents to attend two county hearings on JWA expansion.
"If El Toro is not built—John Wayne will expand," the mailer claims.
Newport Beach’s airport politics are based not only on bad math, but also on bad faith. In late September, 5th District Supervisor Tom Wilson attempted to alleviate Newport Beach’s anxieties by asking the county to stop funding JWA expansion plans. Instead of cheering him, Newport Beach officials attacked Wilson. The reasons are clear: Wilson’s proposal would have removed Newport Beach officials’ most powerful argument for El Toro; he had revealed the emptiness of the Newport Beach airport position.
Fear is a powerful thing, and the fear of JWA expansion has driven
Newport Beach residents to fall in behind airport boosters and real-estate
developers, Newport city officials and groups like AWG—groups that drive
the El Toro debate. So far, the tactic is working.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 82
El Toro Would Be the ValuJet of Airports
By Anthony Pignataro, October 9, 1998
Airport opponents dropped the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on the county’s El Toro International Airport plans last week. Former Department of Transportation inspector general Mary Schiavo held a press conference at Lake Forest City Hall on Oct. 1. Schiavo, wearing a bright-red dress for the CNN and KOCE cameras, reduced the county’s vaunted plan to run John Wayne Airport (JWA) and El Toro simultaneously to a shambles in an hour.
"I will bet you lunch that [JWA] will close if El Toro opens," she said. "You have two airports with just a seven-mile separation. I’d be very surprised if you could get approval for that."
Considering the $45 million the county has pumped into JWA in just the past year alone, Schiavo’s insistence that Orange County’s two airports could not operate simultaneously was devastating enough. Then she criticized the county’s reliance on El Toro’s current runways. "I really doubt that those runways as they are will be your runways," she said. "They will have to be rotated."
Schiavo, who teaches government ethics at Ohio State University, then described why El Toro doesn’t measure up to the Federal Aviation Administration’s preferred airport of the future. The FAA likes:
The criticisms, as El Toro opponents know only too well, are identical to those of the nation’s two largest commercial pilots unions, a former FAA administrator and numerous local airline pilots.
In addition, Schiavo’s credentials make her the most compelling, credible El Toro critic yet. From 1990 to 1996, Schiavo served in the Department of Transportation’s inspector-general post, an experience she later recounted in her 1997 book Flying Blind, Flying Safe. During her tenure, Schiavo oversaw massive investigations into bogus aircraft parts, illegal diversions of airport trust money, poorly trained aircraft mechanics (and the FAA examiners who were licensing them) and airliner crashes.
Schiavo achieved a dark infamy in 1996 when she blasted the FAA for ignoring their own investigators shortly after the May 11 crash of Valujet Flight 592 into the Florida Everglades, killing 110 passengers and crew. David Hinson, then-FAA administrator, had sat on the report even as he told the public: "Valujet is a safe airline. I would fly it." Hinson resigned shortly after Schiavo released an internal FAA memo from three months before the crash calling for the immediate grounding of the discount airline. Schiavo later resigned after encountering what she described as "a culture of unaccountability."
Pro-airport mailers and propaganda list Hinson as saying El Toro is a perfectly safe airport.
Schiavo’s criticisms devastate the county’s plans for El Toro. They make the planners and pro-airport county supervisors look foolish in the extreme. Incredibly, the county’s response to all this was complete indifference.
"We do not anticipate any airspace issues," Ellen Cox Call, the county’s spokeswoman, told the Los Angeles Times. To The Orange County Register, Call defiantly stated that "all the studies say these runways are perfectly safe and more than adequate to meet our needs."
Their needs, perhaps, but certainly not the public’s needs.
The county Board of Supervisors loves John Wayne Airport (JWA). They love discussing it and commending its staff. And they love giving it money–so much so that they’ve given it more than $45 million since June 1997. That’s pretty good, considering the county’s El Toro International Airport plans may close JWA, inside of a decade.
The airport was the first order of business at the Sept. 22 supervisors meeting. Sept. 22 was O.B. Schooley’s last day as JWA’s director, and Chairman of the Board Jim Silva made a presentation in his honor. The amiable Schooley, who became director in 1995 after four years as then airport director Jan Mittermeier’s deputy, is moving on to corporate America.
"Not only was John Wayne Airport designed properly, but it’s user friendly," said Silva. "Boy, are we lucky to have John Wayne Airport."
A half-hour or so after the presentation to Schooley, the board called Silva ’s declaration bullshit by discussing agenda item 44–a $3,611,672 Federal Aviation Administration grant. The grant will pay nearly 81 percent of the costs to reconstruct two JWA taxiways that have been weakened by more commercial airliner traffic than they were designed to handle.
"Now that O.B.’s gone, we have to fix up the place," joked 5th District Supervisor Tom Wilson, whose district includes JWA. Wilson briefly introduced the grant. (Welcome, grant!) and then moved for approval. Third District Supervisor Todd Spitzer immediately seconded the motion. Hearing no opposition, Silva declared the matter approved. The "discussion" took less than a minute.
That’s typical for the board. Whenever a JWA item comes up, either for discussion or immediate passage as part of the consent calendar, it invariable passes without opposition. The Weekly examined 50 JWA appropriations dating back to June 10, 1997–ranging from $8,000 to $25 million. None included a no vote from any of the five supervisors.
The appropriations cover a stunning array of subjects, including maintenance, repair, reconstruction and consulting. Here are five:
-- $262,524 for new contract-management software.
-- $126,326 for the construction and remodeling of the Baker Street restrooms.
-- $137,233 for maintaining passenger-loading bridges
-- $255,033 for public relations.
-- $2,270,000 for drainage improvements.
Obviously, a lot of that is simple maintenance–something understandably required for an active airport. Runway 19L/1R–the short general-aviation runway–closed Sept. 28 for reconstruction. The cost: $1.8 million.
But by far, the largest appropriation came on Aug. 5, 1997, for two new levels of the east parking structure. When completed in the spring of 1999, the structure will hold 1,962 new spaces. The cost: $25.8 million.
Talk to the county, talk to Newport Beach city officials, talk to George Argyros, and you’ll get the same answer: JWA won’t close. Indeed, the county ’s current El Toro plan contains some sort of "people mover" spanning the seven miles between the base and JWA.
Of course, there is considerable evidence that such statements and plans are meaningless. The Air Transport Association, the Air Line Pilots Association and even an FAA division manager all consider the two airports too close and, thus, incompatible. All three recommend ending commercial operations at JWA if El Toro ever becomes an airport.
If they’re right, JWA will have to close. In that case, the strip, terminal and everything else would revert to the Irvine Co., which deeded the land to the county in 1939.
At the very least, it’s possible an El Toro International Airport will make JWA obsolete. And that would make all the millions spent on JWA’s infrastructure look like a waste–something Orange County knows only too well.
But Schooley doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. He’s off to
work ; right about now, he’s moving through the revolving door between
county government and the private sector: he’s going to work for P &
D Aviation, the principal firm handling the county’s El Toro airport planning.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 80
North vs. South
By Anthony Pignataro, October 1, 1998
The county’s methodical airport strategy, never subtle, has become brazenly cynical. And desperate.
During its Aug. 19 meeting, the Orange County Airport Commission (OCAC) asked for more analyses of the little-reported El Toro Plans F and G, which study expanding John Wayne Airport into a 14-million- and 25-million-annual-passenger airport respectively. Plan F could fit into John Wayne Airport’s current dimensions, but Plan G would require “expanded boundaries.” The commission’s reasoning: “In the event that the El Toro [Marine Corps Air Station] is not converted to an aviation use, the traveling public would look to John Wayne Airport to fulfill their traveling needs.”
Fifth District Supervisor Tom Wilson, whose district includes Newport Beach, has already asked county planners to eliminate Plans F and G. But the OCAC also asked county planners to begin studying the feasibility of converting the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center into a commercial airport, should that base close. Indeed, El Toro project manager Courtney Wiercioch said on Sept. 10 that her office is looking into a number of other potential sites for airports, including Los Alamitos.
In fact, these studies serve a cynical political end. South County is stronger than ever. Every city south of the 55 freeway except San Clemente is part of the anti-airport El Toro Reuse Planning Authority. Their non-aviation plan polls higher than the county’s airport plans all over the county. Money from South County residents is pouring into anti-airport candidates’ coffers so fast you’d think they were printing it.
North and central county are different. The Orange County Regional Airport Authority (OCRAA)–a collection of cities supporting an airport at El Toro–can barely keep the members it has. Huge cities (including Huntington Beach, Santa Ana and Orange) are simply sitting out the fight. Cities that maintain OCRAA membership (like Garden Grove, Stanton and Buena Park) tend to have little money to throw around.
But they have votes. They also have a common interest: except for Newport Beach, which feels the wrath of John Wayne Airport, OCRAA cities ring the Los Alamitos base. It’s no secret they joined OCRAA solely to keep those runways from handling commercial aircraft. Considering Los Alamitos as a commercial airport will radicalize these cities, potentially turning out thousands of pro-El Toro votes in any future airport election. Talking up John Wayne Airport expansion will open Newport pocketbooks like never before.
Dave Sullivan, who is running against 2nd District Supervisor Jim Silva, has already seen the danger. During the Sept. 15 Board of Supervisors meeting, Sullivan asked that future John Wayne Airport and Los Alamitos expansion studies be stopped. His reason: there is never justification for building commercial airports near residential neighborhoods.
If the board members really gave first priority to the health, safety and welfare of the people who voted them into office, they’d ban future airport construction in Orange County and find ways to use the former March Air Force Base in Riverside County and commercial airports in Ontario and Long Beach. Ontario just completed a massive expansion project and wants more passengers. March, which opened a couple of years ago as a commercial cargo base, craves more planes for its massive 13,000-foot runway.
Studying Los Alamitos and considering John Wayne Airport expansion
will only antagonize North County in the same way El Toro has solidified
South County. Doing so will make the so-far theoretical county split very
real–a useless and stupid act, unless county officials feel they can use
that split for political gain. If that’s true, Orange County is doomed.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 79
Advise and Relent
By Anthony Pignataro, September 24, 1998
You gotta love the tireless dedication of the El Toro Citizens Advisory Commission (CAC). Once a month, these 14 "citizens" selflessly take time out of their hurried lives to "advise" county El Toro planners on how to build an environmentally disastrous mega-airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Without the efforts of these brave 13 men and one woman, there would be no El Toro International Airport plan.
Their tireless dedication really showed at the CAC’s Sept. 10 meeting. After dispensing with minor procedural stuff, the commission listened to El Toro Master Development Program manager Courtney Wiercioch formally present the county’s new "green" airport plan. Quadrant by quadrant, Wiercioch took the commissioners through her office’s new emphasis on saving parkland, open space and golf courses–in her words, "what the county does best."
This brought immediate consternation from citizen/airport pope George Argyros, the bazillionaire developer who bankrolled the 1994 pro-airport Measure A that created the CAC. "It looks to me that there’s not enough commercial," he said as Wiercioch pointed to a big green map of El Toro. Then, when Wiercioch outlined a proposed 1,000-foot-wide "wildlife corridor " for "deer and rabbits" from the north part of the airport to the south, citizen Argyros was dumbfounded: "They need 1,000 feet?!"
Citizen Christine Diemer, a lobbyist for the Orange County Building Industry Association–one of El Toro’s strongest backers–said nothing.
Next, citizen/commission chairman Gary Proctor brought up the possibility that South County cities might want to make changes in their non-aviation plan. Citizen Argyros made it clear he thought this a dumb idea. "[They’ve] done everything to derail this airport," he said. "And we all know it."
But citizen/Airport Land Use Commissioner Tom Wall saw no problem with the idea, sensibly explaining that should an airport prove infeasible for El Toro, the county better have "the best plan possible" as a backup.
Citizen Diemer–who was once married to Newport Beach campaign-finance attorney Dana Reed, the man now advising Newport Beach on the airport–said nothing.
The CAC next debated the growing controversy over aircraft-noise demonstrations, tentatively scheduled for the fall. "I’d like to discourage the use of 747s in the test," said citizen Argyros. "We should only demonstrate the planes we will use." None of the commissioners pointed out that current county plans include 747s and that leaving them out of any test will minimize the proposed airport’s impact.
Citizen/Newport Beach Mayor Tom Edwards added that, for South County, "this is put-up or shut-up time."
Citizen Diemer, as yet the only commissioner to add nothing to the meeting, said nothing.
Next on the agenda: a proposal to fly cargo planes into El Toro immediately after the Marines vacate next year. Bruce Wetsel, the county’s El Toro aviation team manager, said such flights would require considerable environmental analysis from both the county and the Marines. But citizen Argyros, who has long advocated getting commercial aircraft into El Toro as soon as possible–even before the Marines leave–scolded the county for "making the assumption the county has to wait for the base to close. We ought to do this as soon as we can."
Citizen Diemer then leaned forward and picked up her papers. I leaned
forward with my notepad, ready to scribble the torrent of wisdom I knew
was coming. At five minutes before 6 p.m., citizen Diemer left the meeting.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 78
See No Evil
By Anthony Pignataro, September 17, 1998
The county’s El Toro planning office gets so little praise that it laps up whatever scrap comes its way. Like a month ago, when the Orange County grand jury–an "impartial" body if there ever was one–issued its report on the county’s airport planning process.
"The grand jury lauded the openness of the planning process," trumpeted the county’s latest El Toro newsletter. "The grand jury also commended the El Toro Master Development Program (MDP) management team for its dedication and professionalism in conducting a complex planning process under intense public scrutiny."
For once, the county MDP office spun it right. The 1997-1998 grand jury really did "laud" their "openness" and "commend" their "professionalism."
Not that it means much. District Attorney Mike Capizzi influences the grand jury and the Irvine Co. influences him. Did anyone really think the grand jury would blast the El Toro office?
In fact, the grand jury went out of its way to ignore numerous and significant problems in the office. Most notably, the jury completely side-stepped the county’s national security-like refusal to provide the public–and, on occasion, two county supervisors–with such public records as cost calculations, travel reports and runway-configuration studies.
"Through independent research, the grand jury found no reuse planning information that was being withheld by a county planning organization to the detriment of the public," said its report. "The degree of openness in planning is a subjective judgment" (emphasis added).
Needless to say, Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson were pissed. But on Aug. 18, the board voted 3-2 to accept the report and approve official responses. Spitzer then called for the 1998-1999 grand jury to look at the El Toro office again.
Should the new grand jury take up the matter, it ought to consider problems overlooked or missed by the 1997-1998 jury:
Spitzer said he raised these issues and more with the grand jury. One grand jury member who asked for anonymity confirmed that but told the Weekly, "Spitzer is busy stirring up these problems. We felt it didn’t have anything to do with the process. We think all of that was put to bed–when we found something that had been aired, we didn’t look into it."
Good thing the grand jury didn’t apply that logic to the Scott Baugh
"dupe candidate," the Bob Dornan "illegal immigrants stole
my seat," or the Bob Citron "I don’t know where the $1.6 billion
could have gone" debacles.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 77
The OC Phenom
by Anthony Pignataro, September 10, 1998
In the August 1998 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Robert D. Kaplan asks OC Business Journal Editor Rick Reiff about the long-term effects of the 1994 bankruptcy. "A blip on the screen--in historical terms, just a rainy day," said Reiff. "What I'm saying is that the Orange County phenomenon is intact."
As far as the county-planning office is concerned, Reiff is exactly right. Since 1993, the county has spent roughly $30 million on airport planning. On Aug. 27, county planners set fire to $4.9 million of that money when they released yet another version of their vaunted airport plan, this time known as the "Airport and Open Space Plan."
Remember the free-standing International Trade Complex, hillside technology park and the town center? Remember how county press releases kept referring to the airport as a "community" with "dynamic" and "exciting" non-aviation uses? Remember how Newport Beach Mayor Tom Edwards called those places "a dynamic, human community" that would "transform a great county into a dynamic, perpetually growing economy"?
They're all gone. Suddenly, what the county once called "dynamic" is now called "high-density." Predicted job-growth numbers for the technology parks, once considered "strong," are now considered "incremental."
According to the new El Toro plan, parks, golf courses, habitat reserves and farmland will surround the airport, which retains its 24 million annual passenger, 2 million tons of cargo per year capacity. Considering the impending 2nd District supervisorial election, the plan is a crafty little bomb that embattled Chairman of the Board Jim Silva can toss at challenger Dave Sullivan, who opposes the airport and spent years in Huntington Beach battling Bolsa Chica development.
Ostensibly, county officials junked the convention centers and tech parks to curb locals' fears of an El Toro gridlock nightmare and satisfy wary developers who felt the places would compete with other parts of the county. In releases and at an Aug. 27 press conference, officials went to great pains to emphasize how little traffic the new airport will produce when compared with, say, South County's airport-free Millennium Plan.
Of course, the county's new plan does nothing to allay locals' fears of traumatic noise and air pollution. Officials were also quick to downplay the lost revenue that would come from ditching the non-aviation uses and their inherent high-skill, high-wage jobs. Courtney Wierchioch, chief airport planner, told the Costa Mesa/Newport Beach Daily Pilot that no revenue and no jobs would be lost, saying, "[W]e've just shifted everything from on-the-base to off-the-base."
Now that's slick. Until now, the standard line from the airport boosters was that massive commercial development in South County was fueling aviation demand. Now the county's saying the new airport will spur massive commercial development. Which means, of course, that all the traffic county officials eliminated from their airport will now filter through Irvine and Lake Forest.
Amazingly, the county's latest Opportunity Ahead newsletter (received
by the Weekly on Aug. 31) contains no reference to the new airport plan.
Instead, the cover story displays an artist's rendition of an El Toro International
Airport surrounded by Asuch exciting prospects as corporate consulates,
which provide major multi-national corporations with a business and cultural
presence in Orange County and the "Tech Coast."
El Toro Airport Watch No. 76
Living at Easement
by Anthony Pignataro August 28, 1998
As this is being written, increasing numbers of mostly white, upper-income families are moving into a massive Irvine Co. gated community called Northwood. Just two miles from the end of El Toro’s Runway 34, Northwood is about as close to the future international airport as any of South County’s so-called "planned communities."
But Northwood is different from the other white-bread housing tracts that surround much of the El Toro base. The people who move into Northwood, swelling the ranks of airport opponents, have a weapon against the proposed airport. And it’s all because of eight words in the deed to their house.
On May 18, 1994, the Irvine Co. granted the airspace easements for Northwood ’s 415 acres to the county. The easements are, of course, the rights to fill the airspace above the homes with jet aircraft, fumes and noise. Because OC’ s largest landowner already deeded the easements to the county, future residents can’t buy unless they agree they don’t own the airspace above their houses.
According to the Northwood title, the easement doesn’t apply to "military-aircraft operations," which is interesting, considering plans for El Toro as a commercial airport were mere speculation in mid-1994. But more important is the fact that the easement is incomplete, beginning only "above a mean sea-level height of 1,500 feet." Northwood is 400 feet above sea level. That means all aircraft departing Runway 34–which heads north into Loma Ridge–need to climb in excess of 550 feet per mile. The county’s projected 410 feet-per-mile climb is insufficient to keep the aircraft out of privately held airspace.
"The residents can start suing when the first plane takes off," said Ronald Steinbach, an Irvine-based real-estate attorney who dug up the Northwood easement. As to why the Irvine Co. and the county agreed to such an inadequate easement, Steinbach said: "It’s an old form. They probably didn’t look at it very carefully."
In April, county planners made a show of proposed northern takeoffs straight over Loma Ridge and away from Northwood. But Northwood is so close to the runway that residents will hear planes, regardless of the departure paths. In addition, all of the heaviest international and cargo planes will be using Runway 34, often in the early morning hours.
By doing so, county planners are risking a litigation war pitting a county hell-bent on filling OC skies with more jet airlines against Northwood residents who can afford $700,000 homes equipped with such amenities as four-car garages, custom-crafted staircases and mirrored wardrobes in tracts called Lexington, Arbor Crest and Carlyle at Lanesend.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 75
Dear Anthony
by Anthony Pignataro August 21, 1998
After 71 El Toro Airport Watches, a county official has responded in writing to an OC Weekly El Toro story. ”I read with interest [El Toro Airport Watch No. 71, July 24],” wrote Ellen Cox Call, the county’s new El Toro spokeswoman on Aug. 4. “We were surprised and dismayed at the misstatement of facts throughout the article.” Those “misstatements” concerned my analysis of an April county report called Jeppeson Analyses. A 4-inch-thick collection of painfully arcane aircraft-performance data, the analyses are ostensibly designed to help county planners figure out which El Toro runways are safest.
Our original intention was to run the letter with my response on our lively Letters page, but since the letter is 780 words long and rather convoluted, maintaining reader interest became an issue. I’ll do my best to condense Call’s objections without losing her precious bite.
Safety of Planned Emergency Procedures
In our original article, we quoted 30-year commercial pilot Earl McKenzie saying, “No airport asks us to make a 90-degree turn with a stricken aircraft.” Call says that’s incorrect--other airports in the western U.S. ask aircraft to make even harder turns than 90 degrees. But McKenzie--and the Air Line Pilots Association, Allied Pilots Association and numerous other commercial pilots we’ve spoken to--maintains the county’s requirement that pilots turn 100 degrees and 130 degrees, with the aircraft banked 15 degrees, after losing an engine on takeoff is unusual and potentially dangerous. Whether other airports require even riskier turns is irrelevant: a dangerous turn is a dangerous turn.
Use of the Jeppeson Data
Call writes: “The article states that the county ignored the Jeppeson Sanderson data. This is incorrect. The Jeppeson Sanderson takeoff-performance analyses are being extensively used as part of the effort to determine potential runway utilization. When this effort is completed, it will be documented and summarized in a technical report due for release in late summer or early fall.”
She’s right. I should never have used the word “ignored.” I should have said “suppressed.” Usually, the county releases new reports with flourishes and fanfare fit for a Microsoft rollout. This report passed unannounced into county hands in April. Third District Supervisor Todd Spitzer didn’t know of its existence until July, when we called for comment.
Interpretation of the Jeppeson Sanderson Data
Runway 7 points east, forcing planes to take off uphill, into rising terrain and with tailwinds. To commercial pilots, this is a big deal: they’ve been saying for years that those factors make Runway 7 useless. The county has maintained for years that the runway could handle 70 percent of all commercial departures. Naturally, Call had trouble with my statement that the Jeppeson study showed Runway 7 is the worst at El Toro. Essentially, she said a Boeing 757 departing to the east on a 72-degree day “would be capable of reaching all domestic destinations as well as Montreal or Mexico City with a full load of passengers and baggage.”
To even comment on potential destination is impossible, since neither Call nor the Jeppeson report include any information about wind or weather assumptions. All I can do is restate what I found in the report itself: on a 72-degree day, a 757 can weigh no more than 223,700 pounds on takeoff from Runway 7. Untied Airlines recently raised its maximum limit on 757s to 240,000 pounds. Boeing public-relations data says the plane is structurally capable of weighing 255,000 pounds on takeoff. In other words, Runway 7 limits the takeoff weight of 757s on typical days somewhere between 16,000 and 31,000 pounds--that means less fuel, passengers or cargo. That’s also a limit that doesn’t exist on any of El Toro’s three other runways.
Runway 7, no matter how the county spins it, is bad news for commercial
airlines. The county’s own reports show it. Eventually, perhaps, the county
itself will own up to it.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 74
Prose and Cons
By Anthony Pignataro, August 14
If the scribes on the third floor of 10 Civic Center Plaza in Santa Ana wrote like Tom Wolfe or Norman Mailer, this column wouldn't exist. But they write more like Max Weber (the German sociologist with the labyrinthine style), which means we have more wonderful prose from the brain trust currently known as the El Toro Master Development Program office. On Aug. 5, their trusted hacks released a dandy: a one-page "fact sheet" titled "FAA 'Part 121' Performance Analyses." It's as sensual as whitewater rapids; it's as melodic as a machine gun.
Clearly, county officials equate words with bullets-use enough of them, and you can knock anyone down. Take the first sentence:
"The runway-takeoff performance analyses are part of the information used to determine runway utilization by determining the maximum allowable takeoff weight for a variety of aircraft types for the proposed runways at El Toro."
What grace! What power! And so bold-using the word "determine" twice and "runway" three times, all in one sentence! Who cares if it takes five reads to squeeze out the meaning? That's the point!
The fact sheet is ostensibly an explanation of a 4-inch set of reports compiled by the Denver-based aviation firm Jeppeson Sanderson, which we analyzed in El Toro Airport Watch No. 71 (July 24). Containing hundreds of pages of tables detailing takeoff-performance numbers for dozens of commercial aircraft, the report demolishes the county's oft-repeated statement that 70 percent of all aircraft should take off to the east. The Jeppeson report makes it clear that Runway 7 is the worst of El Toro's four available runways: it has the lowest safety margins, and it's the only runway that would require weight restrictions on every commercial airliner. The report also outlines the unusual-and potentially dangerous-special procedures pilots need to do should they lose an engine on takeoff.
Naturally, none of that appears in the county's Jeppeson "fact sheet." In fact, there really isn't anything in it, except for a few handy tips for pilots-who might not otherwise understand some of the nuances of flying. The section titled "Field Length Limit," which seeks to explain one of the factors that hinders airliners, contains some great advice, including the very sober observation that "an aircraft may not take off at a weight greater than that listed in the [airplane-flight manual]." And this gem: "The takeoff run must not be greater than the length of the runway." Stellar advice, but the county doesn't stop there. It also reminds aviators that when aborting a takeoff, "the accelerate-stop distance must not exceed the length of the runway plus stopway."
God, how the good folks on the third floor must hate their
jobs.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 72
The Big Easement
by Anthony Pignataro July 31, 1998
Critics of the Proposed El Toro International Airport, looking at budget-busting cost overruns at big projects like Denver International Airport, say the county’s “midsized” airport should suck up $6 billion. County officials say that’s nonsense; the airport will only cost $1.4 billion. The real cost won’t be known for years, but one thing is clear right now: there’s a hidden catalyst that could blow the El Toro Airport budget completely apart.
It’s called Leisure World. For the past few years, the 25,000 people who live in the Laguna Hills retirement community have made noise only sporadically, usually by writing massive checks for anti-airport ballot campaigns. But that’s nothing compared to what Leisure World could do if the county plows forward with the airport plans.
“The avigation easements over Leisure World terminate when the military use [of El Toro] ceases,” said Ronald Steinbach, an Irvine-based real-estate attorney and chairman of the legal advisory committee for the anti-airport group Taxpayers for Responsible Planning. Reclaiming them for civilian use “could cost the county billions.”
Avigation easements are simply the rights to the air that flows over homeowners’ heads. If the county wants to dump turbine fumes in that air, they need to buy the easements from the homeowners who live below. For airport authorities, that can be a Pharaonic acquisition. When Hong-Kong’s shiny new Chek Lap Kok airport opened on July 6, it took residents--plastered with 86-decibel noise every two minutes--just three days to start demanding compensation.
Steinbach, who worked for First American Title Insurance Co. in 1993 when that firm negotiated the Leisure World easements, said the last agreement stipulated that all easements would revert to the homeowners, when military jets stop flying over their homes. “The marines got their easements by prescription, meaning they flew for five years, and no one said anything,” said Steinbach. “Of course, there was nothing around the base but bean fields back then, anyway. But the Marines only have easements to fly military jets--not commercial airplanes.”
Should the county dispute that case and build the airport anyway, Steinbach said, the airport would turn Leisure World into an attorney’s paradise, complete with 25,000 eager clients. “I suspect lawyers will just farm the place,” he said.
The county, of course, takes avigation easements very seriously. Every week, it seems, the Board of Supervisors approves more easement sales for new South County developments, especially in Aliso Viejo.
“There, when new homeowners are handed the easements, they’re told,
‘Don’t worry, it’s just technical stuff--sign right here,” said Steinbach.
“They’re signing away one-third of the value of their homes. When someone
gets raped, it makes the 6 o’clock news. Well, these people are getting
raped, but no one’s doing anything to stop it.”
El Toro Airport Watch No. 71
"Runway or Another"
By Anthony Pignataro, July 24, 1998
Once in a great while-about as often as a commercial airliner goes down in flames-the El Toro Airport Watch is wrong. Take Watch No. 67, in which we quoted Earl McKenzie, a Mission Viejo resident and retired commercial pilot. McKenzie told us that county plans for the proposed airport would require pilots taking off with damaged planes to pull an almost impossible 90-degree turn to return safely to the runway. "No airport asks us to make a 90-degree turn with a stricken aircraft," McKenzie told us.
It's now apparent that McKenzie was an optimist: the county's "engine-out procedure" would actually require pilots who lose an engine when taking off to the east to make a far more dangerous 100-degree turn. And that's nothing: pilots in stricken aircraft heading north would have to crank 130 degrees-nearly turning the plane completely around. And they'd have to do that at low altitude, in a basin surrounded by hills, while at two-thirds or even half power.
That's clear from reading Jeppeson Analyses, a report produced by the airport's own supporters. Don't be surprised if you've never heard of the report. Produced by the Denver-based aviation firm Jeppeson Sanderson, the report was delivered to the county in May and promptly ignored for obvious reasons: for the county's airport planners, Jeppeson Analyses was the bureaucratic equivalent of a horse head in the bed.
The report would have remained mothballed if not for a gang that couldn't fly straight: airport supporters and selected commercial airline pilots-Newport Beach and North County residents all. On July 2, these pilots held a press conference at which they unveiled the Jeppeson Sanderson report, saying it "concluded" that "El Toro did not present anymore difficulties than any other airport."
Jeppeson, a big name in the aviation community, draws the airport charts that fill every commercial pilot's flight bag. If the airport boosters were right, the report would be a major coup for airport boosters.
They were wrong. In fact, the Jeppeson report doesn't formally "conclude" anything. Indeed, it has no conclusion. It also has no introduction, no appendix full of assumptions, no executive summary. Ellen Call, spokeswoman for the county's El Toro planning office, said P&D Consulting-the main airport-planning firm that ordered the report-never asked for an executive summary, so Jeppeson never wrote one.
Airport planners are no doubt grateful for that. In the absence of any summary, the report is nearly inscrutable. It consists of two volumes of about 400 unnumbered pages each, almost every page covered with complex tables only a pilot could love. The tables show "performance data"-mainly calculated weights and speeds-for a dozen commercial airliners.
Buried in the numbers is evidence that damns the airport. Critics have charged that the county erred in choosing the eastern-facing runway to handle 70 percent of all take-offs, and the Jeppeson report suggests the critics are right: Runway 7, heading east, is the worst departing runway.
Let's take a typical airliner-the Boeing 757-and a typical day-72 degrees. An analysis of the report indicates the plane can take off to the north at a weight of 258,900 pounds, nearly 10 tons more than its structural limit. Aircraft leaving to the south could do the same, as could planes leaving to the west.
But the county isn't much interested in those runways-for largely political reasons. It insists 70 percent of all El Toro flights will depart runway 7 to the east. That's bad news: The Jeppeson stats show that a 757 departing runway 7 on a 72-degree day can only weigh 219,900 pounds-nearly 21,000 pounds less than its available limit. Jeppeson also studied a theoretically lengthened Runway 7 (from 8,000 to 9,150 feet), but that only increased the 757's maximum weight by 3,800 pounds. That means less fuel, less cargo and fewer passengers-less revenue for the airline, in other words. In industry terms, that's a "penalty" the airline pays every time an aircraft departs Runway 7 rather than one of the other three runways.
"The airlines aren't going to like that," said Todd Thornton, a commercial pilot and Laguna Beach resident. "You don't want a situation where the runway is telling you how to load the airplane."
We can almost see county officials kicking doorways and slamming
desks; if it weren't for that upstart bunch of booster pilots, airport
opponents wouldn't have such glistening new ammunition.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 67
Steep Doo-Doo
by Anthony Pignataro June 19, 1998
County takeoff plans ignore worst-case scenarios
Scott Crossfield, who once tested exotic rocket planes like the X-15 at Edwards Air Force Base, wrote that a sacred rule of flying is “never try tricks with a compromised airplane.” It’s simple test-pilot logic: flying is risky enough when everything works, but when something breaks in midair, don’t screw around. Get the plane down in one piece. At Edwards, Crossfield noted, pilots who played games with stricken aircraft usually wound up dead.
County officials apparently don’t know the Crossfield Rule--or, worse, they’re doing their damnedest to ignore it. Their recently unveiled plans for the proposed El Toro International Airport would require pilots in stricken aircraft to do some fancy flying in order to survive. And pilots interviewed by the Weekly don’t like it one bit.
The controversy is over what the county’s one-half-inch thick “Instrument Flight Procedures Analysis” says pilots ought to do if they lose an engine on takeoff from El Toro.
It says nothing--or nearly nothing: “compliance with...climb-gradient requirements do [sic] not necessarily assure that engine-out obstacle clearance requirements are met.” Translation: no matter how high county planners want pilots to fly at takeoff, losing an engine may send them crashing into the hills dead ahead of El Toro’s main runway, Runway 7.
Pilots interviewed by the Weekly said an engine loss--for which all pilots are rigorously trained--would require a radical 90-degree turn to the right.
“No airport asks us to make a 90-degree turn with a stricken aircraft,” said Earl Mckenzie, a Mission Viejo resident and retired pilot with 33 years of flight experience. “I doubt we could miss those hills with just a 15-degree bank. But that’s what we’d be expected to do.”
Even under ideal conditions, pilots said, the county’s proposed angle of ascent at takeoff--called the “climb gradient”-- is unusually steep. County officials did a great job of hiding that fact. According to the report, commercial aircraft can take off to the east and north at a 410-foot-per-nautical-mile climb with a wide margin of safety. At the county’s May 11 hearing to publicize the report, Ron Ahfeldt of the county’s consulting firm P&D Aviation offered for comparison selected departure gradients for other airports; all were substantially steeper than El Toro’s. According to Ahfeldt, planes “typically” depart San Diego’s Lindbergh Field at 570 feet per nautical mile, San Francisco at 530 feet per nautical mile and John Wayne at 1,000 feet per nautical mile.
“Comparing the departure was a red herring,” said Todd Thornton, a commercial pilot and Laguna Beach resident. “The county compared El Toro’s minimum climb to other airports’ worst-case scenarios.”
According to airport data supplied by Thornton and other pilots, departures from San Diego and San Francisco typically climb 250 to 300 feet per nautical mile--far lower than El Toro. And departures from John Wayne Airport are steep for noise abatement, not terrain clearance; planes that cannot make the climb for whatever reason merely blast Newport Beach and Costa Mesa with jet noise. At El Toro, planes that can’t make the climb may crash.
“Most airport don’t even have minimum climb gradients,” said Thornton. “El Toro just doesn’t have a lot of flexibility. If a pilot is told he only has a 100- to 200-foot buffer between him and the terrain, he’ll say back: ‘Fine, I’ll be at the hotel. Call me when you get a better plan.’”
Bedeviled by hills, Runway 7 is also blasted by almost constant tailwinds, a natural fact ignored in the study.
“Wind is everything in flying,” said a South County commercial pilot who requested anonymity. “Wind determines which runway you use and what direction you take off in.”
So why, the same pilot wondered, did the county’s airport planners study takeoff procedures in a zero-wind environment?
If you want the truth instead of hot air about wind at El Toro, you have to go to the U.S. Weather Service. In a recent study of El Toro over 50 years, the Weather Service concluded that wind blows form the west during eight out of 12 months.
Between hills and tailwinds, pilots interviewed by the Weekly concluded that Runway 25 would be El Toro’s best runway. But that runway points aircraft over the most populated neighborhoods in Irvine.
For obvious political reasons, the county’s instrument-procedures report contains no study of Runway 25 departures. The county likes to repeat that “no planes” will ever take off from Runway 25. Conclusion? According to “Instrument Flight Procedures Analysis,” 70 percent of all airliner will leave El Toro on the airport’s most dangerous runway.
None of this appeared in the daily newspapers. The day before the report was released, the county produced a press release on the subject: “Takeoffs from El Toro to the north and east are feasible and can be conducted in accordance with FAA safety requirements” it read. “Ensuring safety is our highest priority.” The Times Orange County and the Orange County Register gobbled it up, running front-page stories the next day with headlines like “El Toro Takeoffs to East, North Called Doable” and “Disputed Takeoffs Get an Okay.”
A spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) said the union was preparing a detailed response to the county’s report but gave no release date. While it’s true the union president hasn’t taken a formal stand on El Toro, Tom Young, ALPA’s Charting and Instrument Procedures Committee chairman, has. On July 23, 1997, Young wrote Aviation Week & Space Technology that “a ‘word-class’ international airport [at El Toro] will not be possible with the existing arrival and departure flight paths, much less the present runway configuration.” In other words, Young says El Toro’s current runway configuration--which the county is relying on--stinks.
Richard T. LaVoy, president of the Allied Pilots Association, is
more equivocal. On march 9, he wrote Chairman of the Board of Supervisors
Jim Silva, saying, “Our concern is that the eastern departure path [Runway
7] with prevailing tailwinds and into rising terrain would reduce the margin
of safety.”
El Toro Airport Watch No. 66
Now Hear This
by Anthony Pignataro June 12, 1998
Noise is the most complex and terrifying issue facing the county’s El Toro airport planners. A hundred thousand residents live within 5 miles of the base, and they fear--buttressed by substantial scientific and historical evidence--that an El Toro International Airport would blast their ears and erase their property values.
The county’s answer to South County’s increasingly vocal protests is called the Community Noise Equivalent Level (CNEL) line. Looped around El Toro’s runways the county describes the land inside the line as a “noise-impact area” facing an average noise level of 65 dB. By implication, no one who lives outside the CNEL zone--which is most of South County--has anything to worry about.
John Wayne Airport (JWA) noise data makes the CNEL implication meaningless. According to the county’s Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 1997, Noise Abatement Program Quarterly Report, those who reside within JWA’s CNEL line in Santa Ana Heights aren’t the ones who complain the most about the noise.
In the report’s three-months study period, Santa Ana Heights residents--who cope with departing jets screaming a few hundred feet overhead--complained just six times to the JWA noise-abatement office about aircraft noise. Other areas were crankier--Costa Mesa called 25 times; Westcliff in Newport called 43 times, Tustin/Orange called 29 times; Eastbluff in Newport called 13 times.
Balboa and Corona del Mar called the JWA noise office 165 times. Those areas of Newport--a virtual fortress of pro-airport activism--are 4 miles outside the county’s “noise-impact area.”
Naturally, we were stunned. Santa Ana Heights residents probably complain little because the county is insulating their houses against jet noise. But Balboa residents are the last to hear departing jets --beyond them lies the deep-blue Pacific. Abating Balboa homes is insane; they aren’t even close to the CNEL line. Speaking of lines, the one the county is feeding to South County is that Balboa should not be hearing anything.
The Weekly decided to find out. First we went to the end of the JWA runway and waited for a plane to depart so we could test the noise duration firsthand. And we waited. Nothing bigger than a Cessna took off. After 20 minutes, we gave up and went back to the office. But two days later, we went back. Thirty minutes after our arrival, we had our answer: Santa Ana Heights residents hear jet noise for 15 to 20 seconds at a time.
Then we put on our swimming trunks and dove in the freezing water at the Balboa Pier. After 15 minutes of hearing nothing more than our chattering teeth, a jet throttled back over the beach and disappeared from sight. it took an entire minute. The jet was much higher than at Santa Ana Heights, but it loitered in the air, roaring all the way.
South County residents should think about that the next time they hear the word CNEL.
Imagine it’s June 9. The place is the Board of Supervisors’ hearing room in the county Hall of Administration. After Chairman Jim Silva opens the weekly 9:30 a.m. meeting, 3rd District Supervisor Todd Spitzer asks for a few moments to reflect on the county’s El Toro airport plan.
Good morning. On April 21, while this board discussed the county’s four El Toro International Airport concepts, Newport Beach resident Eleanor Tucker went to the lectern and said she hoped “there will be another airport to share the wealth of contamination we have been experiencing.”
That’s probably the first truly honest statement made about El Toro in this chamber to date.
[pause for nervous laughter]
It’s no surprise that people like Ms. Tucker hate living near airports. It is a fact that aircraft are noisy. It is a fact that aircraft pollute our atmosphere. And it is a fact that airplanes crash and the vast majority of crashes occur at or near the airfield itself.
These facts are understood throughout Orange County. Two weeks ago, the Baldassare Association conducted a poll showing nearly two-thirds of all Orange County residents would like another opportunity to vote on the proposed El Toro reuse. Furthermore, the poll showed that more residents--north and south--supported the non-aviation plan than any of the four airport concepts.
Far from divided, then, the poll proves that residents are untied in their distrust of the county’s airport planners--except in Newport Beach. Fed vicious and baseless propaganda, Newport Beach residents see themselves locked in a zero-sum game: without an airport at El Toro, many in Newport Beach believe that John Wayne Airport will have to grow.
There’s plenty of evidence to prove that’s not the case. But facts are mere whispers in the shouting war being waged by Newport Beach developers and their hand-picked bureaucrats here at the county Hall of administration.
It doesn’t have to be this way. El Toro is not a solution to Newport Beach’s fears of John Wayne Airport expansion. Just as there is no reason to construct an international airport at El Toro, there is no need to expand John Wayne. And this is my point this morning: no one--not in South county or Newport Beach--needs to live with an international airport. This board has a responsibility to say now that it will not allow either community to wither and die under an airport.
[pause to scan audience]
I can see that airport boosters in the audience are shifting in their seats.
Permanently restricting air traffic into Orange County will destroy our economy, they’re muttering. This is not even close to true. Relying on John Wayne at its current capacity is not a step backward. it will not hobble our economy. It will not sap our competitiveness. It will not leave us behind.
County planner insist that we need El Toro to take care of regional demand. Yet as I speak, airfields lie idle 30 miles from here, awaiting promised commercial traffic. Airport boosters counter that freeway congestion is so bad--and getting worse--that those airports are inaccessible. If that’s rue, it suggests that Orange County’s real challenge on the cusp of 21st century is to build a mass-transportation system that works--for all of its citizens every day, and not just those few jetting off to Bali two or three times per year.
Closing El Toro to commercial aviation and permanently restricting John Wayne will prove our vision and courage. Rather than enslaving our residents to a lifetime of traffic, noise and air pollution, we would preserve their right to live in a healthy stable environment. To the world, the message would be simple and resolute: Orange County government listens to all of its residents. We are not hostages of the superrich.
It’s time we began looking for safer, more creative solutions to our transportation demand.
So let me make three simple planning proposals as we meet for the first time as a new board:
First, no commercial aviation at El Toro. Second, no expansion of
operations at John Wayne. Third, let’s build a transportation system that
really meets the needs of Orange Countians, a transportation system that
meets the needs of our residents to get to school, work, the store and
back home again safely.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 64--
The Ears Have It
by Anthony Pignataro May 29, 1998
The county proposed El Toro International Airport is, as devoted readers of this column know, the greatest issue facing Orange County. Yet the airport has been ignored in most races - an appalling reality since the reuse of El Toro is a multibillion-dollar project. Each of the following officials has the ability to affect El Toro's future, even if only by railing against the airport monster.
70TH ASSEMBLY:
Remember: McKie fouled up his ballot application, so at lest 1,500 people in Newport, Irvine and Laguna Beach need to write in his name. He's facing incumbent Marilyn Brewer, who is famous for letting Newport Beach guide her policies.
73RD ASSEMBLY:
This one's easy: Bates is the stridently anti-airport Laguna Niguel councilwoman and co-chairwoman of the El Toro Reused Planning authority, the seven cities allied against the airport. She could've been 5th District supervisor, but Irvine co. objections nixed that. It also helps that her main opponents - Steve Apodaca and Jim Lacy - are loons. (See "Republicans Who Smear Republicans," page 12.)
47TH CONGRESSIONAL:
His district includes a substantial swath of South county, but Cox likes playing brewer's game of "letting the market decide what's best for El Toro." Democrat Christina Avalos seems to oppose the airport, saying she advocates maintaining federal control over the base, but she offers no specific as to how she'd do it.
48TH CONGRESSIONAL:
Incumbent Republican Ron Packard's district includes San Clemente, Capistrano, part of Mission Viejo, Oceanside and Temecula. He opposes the airport but has done nothing to stop it. His challengers are all Republican or Libertarian. Good Luck.
2ND SUPERVISORIAL:
The candidate of the year, Genis is the only person running for any office who is clever enough to dismantle the airport juggernaut. (See "Genis at Work," page 8.)
4TH SUPERVISORIAL:
The firefighter/La Palma city councilman (LINK http://www.eltoroairport.org/news/letters.html#pwalker) says publicly he wants to stop the airport. No other serious candidate for this central-OC seat has said anything as clear or definite. No one (See "Walker, Flexes Ranger," page 17.)
5TH SUPERVISORIAL:
Incumbent Tom Wilson pretty much has the race locked up, which means
it's pretty dumb of us to say this. He's never wavered from his statement
that he opposes the airport, but his actual opposition has been lazy and
unsteady - as if he enjoyed sitting in the powerless minority. Fighting
the airport requires vigilant activism every week, something Wilson has
neglected. Putting right-wing Newport Beach City Councilman John Hedges
on the board is unthinkable, but at least we all know where he stands:
front and center at the dedication of a smog-belching, ear-splitting, road-jamming
El Toro International Airport.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 63--
Airport Relief: Spell it "W.A. McKie"
by Anthony Pignataro
May 22, 1998
Remember the name W. A. McKie on June 2. He's a long-shot Democrat running for the 70th Assembly seat, a white-bread district where Republicans outnumber Democrats two to one. He's a staunch opponent of the county's El Toro International Airport plans in a district that includes pro-airport Newport Beach.
Oh, and he's not even on on the ballot.
To get your name on the ballot, the registrar of voters requires the signatures of 40 voters in the district. McKie handed in 39. That means McKie needs 1,500 people to write in his name on the June 2 ballot. If he gets them, he stays alive until November. If he fails, incumbent Marilyn Brewer, a Newport Beach Republican, will likely win outright.
There's a cornucopia of reasons to write in McKie on June 2. Brewer has owned the district since 1994, when she smashed Democrat Jim Toledano with 72 percent of the vote. A former aide to the late 5th District Supervisor Tom Riley, Brewer mirrors her former boss' deference to developers. After his death in February, Brewer said, "His legacy is wonderful." She neglected to mention that Riley left the board in shame in 1994 following the $1.7 billion bankruptcy -- an event Riley -- then chairman of the Board of Supervisors -- certainly had the power to prevent.
But Brewer ought to be most famous for something she's never done: take a stand on the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station reuse. Her strategy since taking office has been an endless repetition of the claim, "I want the highest and best economic use for that 4,700 acres."
Her lack of leadership on the issue is based on political facts. The 70th includes Brewer's hometown, pro-airport Newport Beach. But, two-thirds of her constituents live in anti-airport cities, including Irvine, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Beach and parts of Laguna Hills, Tustin, and Santa Ana. Rather than confront that divide creatively -- for example, by proposing a moratorium on all airport growth, at El Toro and John Wayne -- Brewer has opted for courageously saying, er, nothing.
Changing that is McKie's No. 1 priority. "The airport is the
No. 1 issue in the campaign," he said. Walking precincts and making
phone calls in an attempt to convince voters to write in his name on the
June 2nd ballot, McKie is hopeful. "Brewer's been sitting on the fence
for too long on the airport," he said.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 61--
Times, Reg on Board!
by Anthony Pignataro
May 1, 1998
Last weekís supervisorial vote to approve plans for a 24-million-passenger-airport at El Toro was the high point amid months of uglies for airport boosters. Two weeks ago, the county released its four long-awaited proposed airport configurations but hasnít made clear what any of them cost. Questions linger about the legality of hiring private attorney Michael Gatzke to represent the county in three El Toro International Airport-related lawsuits. The latest poll data show that only 26 percent of the countyís registered voters trust county El Toro Airport officials.
Knowing that official optimism produces public confidence, the El Toro planning staff turned to its public relations gurus at Nelson Communications Group. Nelson answered the call, running a tally of El Toro stories and producing this good news for county officials: when it comes to reporting on El Toro, mainstream reporters are on board.
In a March 30 memo to the county Board of Supervisors, Courtney Wiercioch, the county official in charge of El Toro planning, said Nelsonís ìquarterly media analysisî discovered that ìpositive and balanced media coverage...increased more than 300 percentî between December 1997 and March 1998. During that quarter the Orange County press produced 188 ìpositive and balancedî stories, compared with just 61 such stories in the first quarter of the fiscal year.
Wiercioch didnít explain that positive stories arenít necessarily balanced stories. Both the Times OC and the OC Register excel at writing the ìbalancedî story--in which each side drops a soundbite and the reader is left scratching his head. Even in their so-called critical stories, both dailies always run to the county for their take and typically print it without comment.
That being true, we were shocked to find that Nelson had counted 18 ìnegativeî stories this quarter. Weíre assuming negative means anything that points up errors or deceptions in the countyís plans. The Weekly published 15 such articles during that quarter--whereíd Nelson get the other three?
(To make sure the board understood what she was giving them, Wiercioch included a scientific-seeming bar graph titled ìOverall Positive and Balanced Media Coverage.î It contained just three bars: one dated September 1997 and marked ì61î; one bar twice as high, dated December 1997 and marked ì121î; and one even higher dated March 1998 and marked ì188.î)
In fact, the whole memo is nonsense. That the daily papers hang on Wierciochís every word is no great victory--the Times and Register only reluctantly expose the county on any subject. Despite that, public opinion continues to harden against putting any airport in El Toro.
Now that she has the dailies firmly in hand, Wiercioch can turn to
the real challenge: the legitimate skepticism of the people of Orange County.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 60--
26 Things to Recall
By Anthony Pignataro
April 24, 1998
Twenty-six things to think about while reflecting
on Tuesdayís Board of Supervisors vote to build a 24-million-passenger-per-year
international airport of unknown cost and a $300 million ìpeople-moverî
connecting it to an expanded John Wayne Airport: 4th District Supervisor
William Steinerís April 17 statement that such an airport was unworkable--a
statement he retracted in less than three days. Last yearís $13
million airport-planning cost overrun. The hills that lie at the end of
Runway 34. The $2 million megadeveloper George Argyros has invested in
airport ballot campaigns. The $7,000 Argyros distributed to both 1st District
supervisorial candidates in 1996. March Air Force Baseís 13,300-foot
runway--25 miles away in the middle of nowhere and available for immediate
commercial use. The 50 high-tech Irvine Spectrum companies that oppose
the airport. Nelson Communication Groupís $327,000 county contract
to spin the airport. Cornell Universityís study of Munich Airport
that concluded exposure to chronic airport noise harms a childís
learning abilities. Third District Supervisor Todd Spitzerís statement
last month that the county counselís office defied board policy
by hiring private attorney Michael Gatzke to fight three El Toro lawsuits.
Gatzkeís $1,000 campaign contribution to 2nd District Supervisor
Jim Silva. Seventy-two Marines who died in 1965 when their C-135 crashed
into Loma Ridge after taking off from Runway 34. San Diego Superior Court
Judge Judith McConnellís October 1997 ruling that the countyís
El Toro Draft Environmental Impact Report ìminimizedî noise,
pollution and traffic impacts. County CEO Jan Mittermeierís decision
to veto 5th District Supervisor Tom Wilsonís request for information
on her staffís El Toro lobbying missions to Washing, D.C. No airlines
have yet endorsed the proposed airport. First District Supervisor Chuck
Smithís July 1997 request that anti-El Toro citizensí groups
give the county copies of their financial records. Jet aircraft account
for 3 percent to 5 percent of the worldís greenhouse gases. United
Airlinesí calculation that its 757s can carry only 76.9 percent
of their load when taking off to the east with El Toroís typical
7-knot tailwind. The latest poll that says 66 percent of the countyís
registered voters donít trust county El Toro planners. Silvaís
statement that El Toro will be a great source of ìlow-skill jobs.î
Mittermeierís impossible-to-confirm statement that OC loses ì$4.9
billionî per year because it doesnít have a proper cargo airport.
United Parcel Serviceís statement that itís perfectly happy
having just one cargo flight per day out of John Wayne Airport. David Hinson--the
Federal Aviation Administration head who said ValuJet was safe--says El
Toro is safe, too. Newport Beachís January decision to hire former
3rd District Supervisor Don Saltarelli to lobby on El Toro matters. The
countyís July 1997 decision to pay former Argyros-owned AirCal executive
Bruce Wetsel $165,000 per year to head El Toro aviation planning. Airports
expand.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 59--
Sonic Bore
By Anthony Pignataro
April 17, 1998
In 1946, surveying the global carnage wrought by dictatorship and democracy alike, George Orwell wrote, ìPolitical speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.î Orange County El Toro International Airport planners have regularly proved things havenít changed.
On April 7, for example, county planners nudged ìnoise consultantî Vince Mestre to the lectern at the Board of Supervisors meeting. Officials billed Mestreís appearance as another in a series of ìeducationalî briefings. In fact, Mestreís presentation was so convoluted and technical that no one in the audience or on the dais seemed to learn anything.
In other words, Mestre did his job.
Noise is the most technical and controversial issue concerning El Toro. Tens of thousands of people live in fear that the new international airport will ruin their neighborhoods and lives. Mestre said nothing to calm their fears. Instead, his impenetrable sentences--packed with redundant phrases and arcane jargon--floated through the hearing room like a dense fog. Consider the following quotes, presumably meant to ìclear up misinformationî:
ìNoise is one of the factors that can be assessed by objective-assessment criteria.î
ìStudies of human response to noise have shown that human response to noise is very complex.î
ìThere is a relationship between noise exposure and the population that is affected by noise.î
A press release on Mestreís work was even worse. After pages of labyrinthine sentences, the releaseís ìFrequently Asked Questionsî section suddenly states that noise research ìhas yet to show repeatable cause-and-effect relationships linking noise with adverse effects.î
That is absolutely untrue. A 1980 study (done, in part, by Dr. Dan Stokols of UC Irvine) found that children who lived under the LAX flight track were more ìstressedî than children in quieter neighborhoods. Another LAX study in 1993 found that airport noise caused an additional 60 deaths per year. A 1995 study by Barbara Luke of the University of Michigan found that chronic noise stimulates stress hormones in pregnant women. A 1996 study by Cornell University found that sustained noise exposure retards memory in children.
Chronic noise damages the human body. But that statement is too simple--and
thus, too dangerous--for the county to address. Especially when boring
people into submission is so much easier.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 58--
Not Yet LAX
by Anthony Pignataro April 10, 1998
For the first time since the Pentagon decided to surrender the El Toro Marine Corps Airstation, the 1.4 million people who live around the base have something to look forward to besides the countryís fifth-largest international airport as a next-door neighbor. On the last day of March, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA)--seven cities opposing the proposed El Toro International Airport plans--delivered its non-aviation plan to the county Board of Supervisors.
Instead of an airport the size of San Franciscoís, ETRPAís plan would transform El Toroís 4,700 acres into open space, research complexes, a sports stadium, a college campus, a central park, an ìarts and culture village,î and residential housing.
The countyís pro-airport Citizens Advisory Commission has already looked at ETRPAís plan and--surprise--questioned some of the details. If only the commission had been similarly skeptical when the county presented its own misshapen plan. For anyone weary of the countyís multi-year planning processes and rising budgets exceeding $10 million, the ETRPA plan is a relief. The plan took six months; the airport is four years in the making and still unfinished. ETRPAís consultants did their work for $1 million; last yearís airport master-planning budget was $13 million; by yearís end, the county spent $7 million more than that--20 times ETRPAís budget.
Public reaction at the boardís March 31 Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA) meeting--where ETRPA formally handed off the plan--was overwhelmingly positive. Steven Myers, president of the Newport Beach-based systems engineering firm SM&A, said ìwe are finally at a point where a rational choice can be made.î Bill Kogerman, chair of the anti-airport political action committee Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, said the plan ìwas a long time coming.î Larry Agran, former Irvine mayor and current chair of the anti-airport group Project 99, described the plan as ìeconomically and environmentally superior to the countyís airport plan.î
For the most part, the Board of Supervisors, which makes up the LRA, behaved themselves as the audience of airport supporters applauded again and again during the planning consultantís presentation. There was one interesting moment, though, when Fourth District Supervisor William Steiner asked how much, if any, the planís proposed stadium and convention center would draw from similar areas in his own district, which includes Anaheim Stadium and the Convention Center. The question revealed a new kind of venality among already venal pro-airport forces. Suddenly, it seemed the plan to build an airport at El Toro might be part of an elaborate, expensive real-estate chess strategy for Anaheim; an international airport would simultaneously ferry in Disneyland-bound tourists and block the development of any competing South County tourism facilities.
But the biggest criticism of the ETRPA plan--that it does nothing to address the countyís supposed aviation-demand problem--is absurd in the extreme. The people who crafted, paid for and support the plan simply donít accept that the countyís No. 1 planning priority is addressing aviation demand. Call them nuts, but airport opponents say maintaining quality of life trumps a nonstop to Paris.
The non-aviation plan does have its problems. To reduce confusion, ETRPA asked its consultants to use the same math models the county used in its airport planning. As the Weekly has previously reported, those models underestimate the airportís cost by at least a factor of three--raising questions about the ETRPAís projected cost, revenue and job creation. The lack of low-income and homeless housing is immediately apparent. And the proposed educational complex is vague about what kind of school would actually take up residence.
ìThis plan has problems,î said Hispanic activist Art Montez. ìBut itís better than an airport.î Montez, an outspoken critic of the board of supervisors, summed up the situation facing them: the airportís critics ìcame to us for input--something you never did. You only come when you want our pocketbooks. I suggest you put this on the ballot.î
Now the battle begins in earnest. During the meeting, La Palma councilman Paul Walker, whoís also campaigning for the open 4th District supervisorial seat, said heíd taken a copy of the planís executive summary on a walk through his district. According to Walker, 25 of the 25 people he talked to preferred the plan to the airport.
Unfortunately, you canít always get what you want. As it stands, the ETRPA plan goes into effect only if there is a ìfatal flawî in the airport plan. There are many but, willfully blind, itís unlikely the Board of Supervisors will find even one.
That may mean the people of Orange County will have to use the ballot box to scrap the airport plan. Three supervisor seats are up for grabs in November. If airport opponents fail to overturn the current 3-2 split in favor of the airport, theyíve already begun talking of a third ballot initiative in 2000. Either effort would require something weíve advocated from the beginning--grassroots organizing. Doling out $1 million and hiring a consulting team was easy; defeating developer-backed political campaigns has always been difficult.
Agran ended his comments to the LRA by asking that the ìcompetition
begin.î It was a stirring moment, made more invigorating by a new
reality: considering the rising opposition to the airport--even among formerly
supporting cities in North County--this ainít a competition airport
opponents are likely to lose.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 57--
The Times Is A-changiní
By Anthony Pignataro April 3, 1998
Until recently, Times OC reporters approached the raging battle over the El Toro Marine Corps Airstation with only half-hearted interest, filing stories about as often as county planners decided it was time to release something to the public. And then, theyíd rarely--if ever--challenge the countyís insistence that they could do what a growing number of commercial pilots say is impossible: build a safe, profitable international airport at El Toro.
March 27 brought a welcome change. Thatís when the Times ran reporter Lorenza Munozís story about flaws in the countyís plan to route takeoffs of the largest and heaviest planes north, away from Tustin, Orange and the rest of central Orange County. The main source of the Times story: an April 30, 1996, memo detailing a meeting between the countyís chief planning consultant and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The memo, which we first wrote about in August 1997, was prepared by Steve Allison of P & D Consultants and sent to Courtney Wiercioch, El Toro Master Development Program Manager, among others. It lays out in refreshing clarity (considering the foggy county statements meant for public consumption) the problems associated with departing from El Toro.
Itís clear from the memo that both P & D and the FAA understand that El Toro is in a box--hills on three sides, a line of planes landing at LAX a files north, planes landing at John Wayne Airport directly west of the base.
According to the memo, the only way planes can escape all that is to fly north over cities that still consider themselves safe from El Toro, including Orange, Tustin and Lemon Heights. Even pro-airport Newport Beach is vulnerable, since (according to the memo) planes departing to the north ìwould probably be kept under 4,000 [feet] until reaching the coastline.î
As weíve been saying all along, the memo holds profound implications for county El Toro planners. Cities like Villa Park, which already live with planes landing at John Wayne Airport, will have to deal with planes taking off from El Toro as well. Munoz also seems to appreciate this plan: ìThe county could ill afford an erosion of support in those communities since all of South County is already opposed to the plan.î
Yet the county refuses to admit defeat. Munoz quotes Wiercioch as saying, ìWe are doing our darndest to avoid the politics to make sure we focus on the safest, most community-friendly project.î
ìCommunity-friendlyî? Not to Wiercioch: youíve been assigned a task--to plan and build an international airport, not a neighborhood park. Airports are noise, noxious and congested. Which is why public opinion is increasingly against constructing any kind of airport--including bureaucratically-misidentified ìcommunity-friendly projectsî--at El Toro. With the Times catching on to that, even well after the fact, the airport may soon be recognized for what it is: dead on arrival.
Spring is here. In the Laguna Canyon, bright flowers bloom. In Mile Square Park, youngsters kick up dirt on the baseball diamonds. And in the county Hall of Administration, planners and bureaucrats polish next yearís budgets.
The fiscal year is ending, and Courtney Wiercioch, the El Toro Master Development Program Manager, wants another $10 million. But donít worry--thatís just half of last yearís El Toro Airport planning budget. Then again, last year, she said sheíd only need $13 million.
Since 1994, Wiercioch and her predecessors have spent over $27 million planning the big El Toro International Airport. Theyíve contracted out studies, reports, environmental-impact reports, community plans, specific plans, master plans--all dubiously concluding that a 38 million annual passenger airport with 447,000 operations per year will be a decent, quiet neighbor to the South County.
According to a March 12 memo Wiercioch sent to the El Toro Citizens Advisory Commission, she has grand plans for the money. Her wish list includes such items as ìsubstantial legal support,î ìthe establishment of a [Master Development Program] satellite office on the base,î and ìnew County staff positions.î
Wiercioch will also be asking for more money to wing her staff off to Washington to ìprovide status reportsî to the powers-that-be. The county has spent $30,000 in the last two years on El Toro travel, but Wiercioch assured the CAC that her request will be ìsubstantially greater than last yearís request.î
But more ominous to El Toro opponents is Wierciochís statement that she has ìdecided to restructure the way in which we manage and implement the public information program.î In fact, Wiercioch wants ìthe dedication of full-time staffî to replace her current reliance on Nelson Communications Group. So far, Nelson has produced two newsletters, about 1 billion press releases and a website that proudly proclaims parents need not worry about their childrenís exposure to chronic noise because ìjust a few schoolsî are under the approach corridor.
Is this the best the county can do? The countyís Community Services Agency needs to improve its employment centers, so that all those poor people tossed off the county welfare rolls can find a job. And Social Services needs to build emergency shelters for child abuse victims, as well as make the Orangewood Childrens Home a safer place.
County officials say none of that is in the 1998-99 budget. Itís
easy to see where the county gets its priorities--abused children donít
make campaign contributions.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 55--
Courtneyís (Airport) Love
by Anthony Pignataro March 20, 1998
March has been a bad month for the countyís El Toro Master Development Program Manager, Courtney Wiercioch. But the story of Wierciochís recent airport troubles really begins on Jan. 13. Thatís when Wiercioch attempted to woo the county board of supervisors with a letter from American Airlines President Robert W. Baker. Wiercioch said the brief letter, addressed to Tom Naughton of the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group, showed that no less an authority than American Airlines deemed El Toro safe. Indeed, the letter seemed to show just that: ìAmericanís 757ís would encounter no operational difficulties utilizing Runways 07 Left or Right at El Toro.î
To anyone familiar with Runway 07, the statement flew in the face of reality--or, rather, into the face of steeply rising terrain with nasty tailwinds, the recipe for the aviation equivalent of Titanic.
And in an embarrassing U-turn, Baker now says he never intended Wiercioch to publicize his letter. On March 2, the airline president wrote to L. David Markley of the El Toro Citizens Advisory Commission (CAC), ìI am afraid that my correspondence with Tom Naughton has been taken far out of context.î Letís linger for a moment over the word ìfar.î
According to Bakerís second letter, transforming the Marine base into an international airport involves ìmany parameters beyond . . . El Toroís airfield.î Like 6,000-foot mountains, tailwinds, and federal agencies. Said Baker, any ìcredible analysis [of El Toroís feasibility] would require the FAAís involvementî--something that hasnít happened yet.
That wasnít the end of Wierciochís ordeal. The day after Baker wrote his letter to Markley, Wiercioch fired off a two-page memo to the board of supervisors blasting a citizen-run anti-airport website for saying, among other things, that two commercial pilotsí unions oppose the El Toro layout.
ìThis is not the case,î she wrote. Her evidence? At the heart of the countyís massive El Toro planning bureaucracy, she flipped past economic and environmental reports, aviation studies, federal reports and cited a (DATE?) Orange County Business Journal article. That article, headlined ìPilotsí Unions Say They Havenít Called El Toro Unsafe,î included quotes from both unionsí spokespeople denying any official position on the subject.
Both Wiercioch and the OCBJ ignored previous comments from both unionsí safety and instrument committee members that the current emphasis on Runway 7 departures is unsafe. And then it got worse for Wiercioch. On March 9, Richard T. LaVoy, President of the Allied Pilots Association (APA) ended all speculation about his union. In a letter to airport fanatic and chairman of the Board of Supervisors Jim Silva, La Voy wrote, ìthe safest primary departure path . . . would be to the west, into the prevailing winds and away from the rising terrain.î
That would indeed be the safest take-off route. But it would send
thousands of flights per day over residential Irvine--a scenario the county
has dismissed all along. La Voy concluded by saying the county could decide
whatever it wanted about runways, ìOur pilots will use the safest
departure paths . . . just as we now do at the John Wayne Orange County
Airport.î Which is what the opposition has been saying all along.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 54--
How to Kill an Airport
by Anthony Pignataro March 13, 1998
The one argument El Toro boosters swing like a sledgehammer is air traffic demand. One glossy pro-airport brochure displays an unattributed graph showing passenger demand rocketing ever higher, topping out at 30 MAP in 2020. Another says simply that ìwe will need additional airport capacity.î
Missing from the hysterical we-must-keep-up-with-demand-or-else rhetoric is any hint that rushing to meet that demand might actually do more harm than good. According to a recent Earth Island Journal article, jet aircraft account for 3-5 percent of the worldís greenhouse gases, making air travel more environmentally harmful that auto traffic. The article goes on to warn that ì[n]o country in the world has set realistic environmental limits for air traffic.î With world air travel expected to double in the next two decades, that means airliners will account for half the annual destruction of the earthís ozone layer by 2015.
Many Europeans who live near giant airports similar to the one envisioned for El Toro have had enough of such talk. Theyíre taking action in ways that should inspire and embolden El Toroís opponents.
In Amsterdam, the group Friends of the Earth Netherlands opposed government plans to add a fifth runway to Schiphol Airport. To arouse attention, the group infiltrated the airport and occupied one runway. The group later actually bought the proposed runway site, effectively terminating the expansion plans.
Failing to stop new runway construction, activists at Duesseldorf Airport in Germany were successful in preventing its use. And across the North Sea, activists at Manchester Airport slowed expansion by tunneling beneath a new runway construction site.
But perhaps the most controversial weapon against airport expansion in Europe is aimed at the heart of the problem--unconstrained demand. Known as the ìRight Price for Air Travelî campaign, activists are seeking to end European price controls in the airline industry. Specifically, the campaigners want to the government to jack up the prices of flight tickets, jet fuel and cargo transport, ìto reflect their true environmental cost.î
Of course, America has no such subsidies. But Econ 101 says halting new airport construction everywhere would also dampen demand. Prices would rise at current airports, sending travelers scurrying for alternative transportation. El Toro is a great place to start.
Judging by the time theyíre spending at the post office, the El Toro airport boosters are getting desperate.
Hundreds of thousands of glossy brochures are floating around the county, full of pretty maps and absurd statistics. Some are romantic, like the one paid for by George Argyrosí Citizens for Jobs and the Economy that says the proposed airport is critical for ìtrade, tourism and technology.î Others, like the one sent out by the Newport Beach Airport Working Group, warn that unnamed ìSouth County politiciansî are secretly conspiring to ìdouble the size of John Wayne Airport.î
With such rampant and paranoid propaganda flooding residentsí homes like storm runoff, itís a good time to revisit a long-forgotten 1994 study on El Toro. That study, prepared by the firm Kotin, Regan & Mouchly, Inc. (KRM) for the City of Laguna Niguel, had some ominous conclusions about the proposal to turn El Toro into an international airport--some of which hold particular relevance today.
The same mailer that says John Wayne Airport could destroy Tustin and Villa Park also says that El Toro is ìalready an airport.î Thereís no question that El Toro is an air station, but it isnít an airport. According to KRM, El Toro requires a great deal of reconstruction. The terminal and hangars are too small and outdated to accommodate commercial jets--the county confirmed sometime ago that theyíll demolish all that.
But KRM also reported that a 1990 report commissioned by the Navy Department found the runways and taxiways are inadequate for commercial use. Runways 16 and 7 require some concrete reinforcement. Many of the taxiways are ill-placed and too weak for heavy commercial jets. Three of the baseís parking aprons--where aircraft rest outside their hangars--require reconstruction. Although a base spokesperson said that the Marines carry out some runway maintenance, they havenít done any large-scale reconstruction in years.
That makes the ìEl Toro is safeî statement in the Citizens for Jobs and the Economy brochure meaningless. If El Toro isnít yet an airport, how can it be safe?
But even if it were an airport, El Toro still wouldnít be safe. Airport boosters in both brochures point to ìthe 18,000-acre ëNo Homeí noise buffer zone surrounding El Toro.î
As South County residents know only too well, people live inside that buffer zone. In fact, KRM concluded in a study of alternative airport sites (which included Camp Pendleton) that El Toro has ìthe highest potential civilian casualties in the event of an airplane crash due to the extensive residential and commercial development.î
Donít hold your breath waiting for that fact to appear in the boostersí next high-priced mailers.
Letís talk money.
At a county board of supervisors meeting last month, the El Toro planning head made a big deal over a letter from American Airlines vice president Robert W. Baker saying the proposed airport would be just dandy. In fact, Courtney Wiercioch, the El Toro Master Development Program manager, said the letter shows that El Toroís infamous Runway 7 (exposed to tailwinds, runs up hill, and into rising terrain) is no problem for the Boeing 757, the industry workhorse for cross-country flights.
The Nov. 25, 1997 letter Wiercioch waved around was addressed to Tom Naughton, president of the Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group. But it isnít the only airline letter Naughton received concerning El Toro. In June, Albert E. Domke, Operational Engineering Manager for United Airlines, sent Naughton the B757-200 data he had requested the month before. In other words, Naughton wanted to know how much payload United Airlines 757s could carry from Runway 7 under good and bad conditions, and whether the planes could reach New York profitably.
The county Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) states that a B757-200 flying off Runway 7 with no wind can fly to New York carrying 100 percent of its potential passengers and baggage. The DEIR also states that the plane can carry a similar load even under a seven knot tailwind.
Domke says otherwise. According to his letter, United Airlines B757-200s can only carry 94.5 percent of their load with no wind. Ironically, Domkeís data indicates that 757s can fly out of John Wayne under similar conditions with 96.6 percent of their potential payload. But with a seven knot wind blowing up Runway 7 (which commercial pilots say is fairly common), Domke says 757s are limited to an astonishing 76.9 percent of their potential loads.
So if your eyes were glued to the bottom line, where would you run nonstop flights to New York out of: John Wayne or El Toro? The reason for the wide disparity: engine selection. United, Northwest and Delta all use 757s equipped with Pratt & Whitney engines. But American (which says it sees no problem with Runway 7) and Continental use newer and more powerful Rolls Royce engines. The DEIR data is based on the Rolls Royce engines--obviously not a domestic industry standard.
Is it any wonder that San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell ruled that the DEIR minimizes the proposed airportís impacts?
El Toro Airport Watch No. 51--
Power to the People
by Anthony Pignataro February 20, 1998
The countyís plan for an international airport at El Toro is no longer a fore-gone conclusion. The South County cities charged by the county with developing a non-aviation reuse plan have produced a clear winner.
Centered around a large urban park, the plan brings residential, commercial, technology and entertainment interests together into one place accessible to everyone. You want a research complex that meshes with the nearby Irvine Spectrum? You want commercial/residential villages where people live within walking distance of theaters and restaurants? You want an arts and cultural center with museums and galleries? You want a lush garden as large as Golden Gate Park? You want an entertainment complex similar to Universal Citywalk? Theyíre all in the plan.
And thereís no noxious international airport in the center. ìThis is built on a people-scale,î said Meg Waters, a spokesperson for the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA). ìThis will take the county away from centering on Disneyland, beaches and suburbia. This will turn O.C. into a great urban area for everyone in the county.î
ETRPA consultants say the plan will create roughly 46,000 on-site jobs, 86,000 county jobs and over $8 billion in total economic output when itís completed in 2020. To prevent confusion, the consultants even used the countyís own planning methodology to work out the numbers.
And, in a novel twist, people played an integral role in developing the plan. ETRPA representatives monitored two public workshops on non-aviation ideas last October sponsored by the anti-airport group Project 99. And after residents commented on three potential plans in November, the ETRPA consultants actually incorporated some of the ideas and concerns into the current draft. ìThis wasnít the product of a bunch of bureaucrats and planners,î said Paul D. Eckles, ETRPAís executive director. ìThere were hundreds of people involved in this.î
The plan dovetails nicely with a new implementation strategy developed by Project 99. In A Real Choice for a Better Future--the groupís recent report on El Toro non-aviation reuses--Project 99 advocates immediately developing the countyís non-aviation reuses along the baseís eastern edge. The county would develop the rest of the base years later, after the airport ceased to be an issue. That strategy could be the deathblow to the airport--if the county decides to implement it.
Of course, the county insists its plan is more than an airport. But how will the county find tenants for schools and research complexes if everyone knows the nationís fifth-largest airport will be next door? The ETRPA plan offers something for every resident; the county plan offers something for every developer. Itís time the county started listening to the residents.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 50--
Poor Visibility
by Anthony Pignataro Feb. 13, 1998
We had no idea Jim Silva was such a humanitarian. On Groundhog Day, the recently-anointed Chairman of the Board visited KOCEís Real Orange news program to talk about the countyís economy, welfare reform and, of course, the countyís wunderplans for El Toro.
We were sure Silva would just sit there stiffly, regurgitating the latest El Toro boosterisms while competing for attention with a nearby bowl of oranges. And for the first couple of minutes, thatís exactly what he did, droning on about how unemployment is so low and how his welfare reform plan means that everyone will be back to work in a very short time.
Then interviewer Peter Murphy launched into a much sexier topic--the countyís desire to drop Americaís fifth-largest international airport into the South County.
Silvaís response--so forthright and genuine--needs to be quoted in its entirety. Well, thatís going to be a lot of jobs, said Silva. And people say where are people going to find jobs that are on welfare right now. Well, thereís a lot of low-skill jobs with every airport that will take care of a lot of communities that have a lot of people who have a hard time getting jobs.
In one stroke, Silva put a humane face on the future airport. Airports arenít wealth-creators for the real-estate industry or playthings for the idle rich--theyíre job machines for welfare recipients! And what jobs--skycaps, baggage handlers, fast-food concessionaires, in-flight meal caterers, janitors, and those guys who push wheelchairs from gate to gate.
Forget the Urban Lifestyle Plan the South County cities chose as their reuse plan for El Toro. Turning El Toro into an urban research complex surrounded by parkland will just create too many high-wage, high-skill jobs. Until now, airport boosters have repeated statements that El Toro...will create high-paying jobs and that a commercial airport generates jobs which are similar to or greater than existing income levels in Orange County. Thatís all going to change if Silvaís new airports-are-for-poor-people spin takes off.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 49--
Donít Stop the Press
by Anthony Pignataro Feb 6, 1998
Once again, Experian Corp. studied housing prices around the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Once again, the Anaheim-based ìinformation services firmî concluded the impending airport wasnít crushing property values. And once again--for the third time in a year--the Times OC publicized the study.
The Jan. 28 Times story ran on the front page under a headline that might have been written by airport backer and multi-bazillionaire developer George Argyros--ìHome Values Rise Near El Toro Base.î The better headline: ìFirm Makes Dubious Claim that Airport Blight Raises Home Prices.î
According to Experian, property within seven miles of the base appreciated 4.1 percent in the last six months, while housing values for the rest of the county only rose 2.4 percent. The last two Experian studies showed property values virtually stable. The Experian report is, in fact, highly questionable, and the Times story offered no explanation for the jump in values. In fact, the Times quoted Nima Nattagh--the Experian market analyst who conducted the study--as saying, ìHas the proposed airport had an impact on housing values? No--so far.î
But the Times did explain that Experian ìsaid it undertook the study independently and was not influenced by any outside groups.î In fact, as the Weekly documented last September, at least two senior Experian executives sit on advisory boards at Chapman University (whose president, James Doti, is one of El Toroís biggest fans). Their colleagues on those boards include pro-airport developers George Argyros, Doy Henley and Gary Hunt.
None of that appeared in the Times story, which also failed to disclose that, according to the California Real Estate Appraisal board, Nattagh is not a licensed real-estate appraiser.
Two thirds into the story, the Times demolished its own story--and flatly contradicted the headline over the story--by quoting licensed real estate appraiser Randall Bell. He said Experianís methodology ìimplies something that cannot be mathematically implied. I donít know if itís a useful expenditure of time or resources.î No surprise there. According to Bell, airplanes donít affect housing prices until, well, until they start flying over the neighborhood.
Buried at the end of the story, the Times cited a study of Seattle-Tacoma International Airportís expansion. According to that report, the airport sapped 14 percent from property values within a range of five miles. The reason: increased noise, pollution and traffic--exactly what South Countians fear the El Toro Airport will bring to their neighborhoods. If that wasnít enough to bury the Experian study, the Times quoted a Lake Forest real estate agent who said disclosing the airport potential to prospective buyers was negatively impacting sales.
All of that leads us to ask--if the Times found such stellar evidence that Experian conducted a flawed study, why did it legitimize the results with a front-page story?
Editors comment - As further proof that no-one
reads tabular data except engineers, we've yet to hear anyone pick up the
fact that a table of statistics accompanying the story shows that housing
values within 5 miles of the base grew at a slower rate than for the
county as a whole. Experian used an arbitrary cut-off of 7 miles from the
base to make their opposite point.
Len
El Toro Airport Watch No. 48--
Weíre Stupid
by Anthony Pignataro Jan. 30, 1998
The Orange County El Toro planning staff is pretty cocky. It thinks it can make a 38 million-annual passenger international airport work at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. It thinks it can ignore two pilotsí unions that insist the current El Toro runway orientation is dangerous. It thinks it can charm pissed-off South County residents into viewing the airport as a quiet, decent neighbor.
Now the planners think they can tell county residents theyíre stupid. Commenting on a recent poll that showed 51 percent of the countyís registered voters oppose an airport at El Toro (compared to 43 percent who like the idea), El Toro planning manager Courtney Wiercioch told the Times OC the numbers mean nothing--that the public doesnít have enough information.
If anything, county residents have too much information for Wierciochís own good. Just last June, a county-sponsored poll showed 45 percent for and 33 percent against the airport. In the intervening six months, a lot has happened that might explain the sudden and dramatic shift in public opinion clocked in the last poll. Just before the June poll, Todd Spitzer joined the county Board of Supervisors, adding his opposition vote to Tom Wilsonís; Spitzer is a vocal opponent of the airport.
At the same time, commerical pilots and many high-tech firms in the Irvine Spectrum began publicly fighting the proposed airport.
Residents could also reflect on the countyís June decision to hire a public-relations firm for $329,000 to spin the airport their way. September brought news that the county El Toro office had spent $20 million for the airport master plan--$7 million over budget.
Bad news for airport supporters--and the likeliest explanation for an October poll (conducted by UC Irvine professor Mark Baldassare) that showed 48 percent of residents opposed and 41 percent supported an El Toro airport.
Since then, thereís been even more for Orange Countians to think about. In October, a San Diego Superior Court judge ruled the countyís El Toro Draft Environmental Impact Report misrepresented noise, traffic and pollution impacts. In November, county CEO Jan Mittermeier tried to block Wilsonís perfectly legal and legitimate request for El Toro information; she later backtracked and blamed her refusal on fatigue.
Ironically, when they attempt to defend the airport as the will of the people, county officials point to two ancient samplings of opinion. In November 1994, voters passed Measure A, which mandated an airport at El Toro by 51 percent to 49 percent. Two years later, voters soundly defeated Measure S, which would have repealed Measure A, by 60 percent to 40 percent. Citing the ballot initiatives two weeks ago, Board of Supervisors Chairman Jim Silva said, ìThe board needs to honor the will of the voters.î
Hereís the irony: today, with every major poll running against them, Wiercioch and Silva claim the public is stupid. If weíre stupid now, imagine how stupid we were three years ago, when the only information available to us were expensive mailers and radio ads saying a vote against the airport was a vote for a maximum-security prison.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 47--
Danger: Watch for 'Complex Issues'
by Anthony Pignataro Jan. 23, 1998
Memo to Courtney Wiercioch, El Toro master development program manager:
I wasnít kidding last week when I said your Jan. 13 airspace presentation to the county Board of Supervisors was impressive. I donít know if that show was the idea of the airportís leading public-relations firm, Nelson Communications Group, or yours. But it was brilliant. What a coup!
For a while, the Times OC was actually running stories critical of airport plans. But when I saw the seemingly scientific computer animation you ran for the board, I knew youíd have the Times and Register practically working for you. Thatís partly because, as Nelson pointed out to you when it was still seeking the PR job, ìthe media, by nature, have trouble with complex issues.î No kidding.
They fucked up reporting on the bankruptcy and have largely screwed up coverage of the toll roads. They couldnít even get the Dornan-Sanchez thing straight. Itís no surprise they ate up county CEO Jan Mittermeierís claim that OC loses almost $5 billion a year because we only have John Wayne Airport.
Mittermeier, as you know, cited Chapman president James on that claim; Doti denied he ever came up with that number. But has either paper run a correction? Does either paper even care?
Thatís why showing off consultant Belinda G. Hargrove was so slick. She got up in front of the board with color slides and a computer simulation that looked like it came straight out of the Pentagon. She wowed the press. Their headlines say it all: ìFiling an Efficient, Safe Flight Plan for Airport at El Toroî the Times claimed the next day; ìStudy: 2 airports would be safeî wrote the Register. Never mind that Hargroveís slides and cartoon showed nothing of the sort. Or that her animation was of Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) because sheís only begun to model El Toro.
The Times certainly didnít bother--they made it look as if Hargrove had actually done all the work of simulating conditions at El Toro. Even so, her comparison of El Toro and John Wayne to DFW and Love Field is a stretch--DFW is an LAX-style operation built in the middle of nowhere, and Love Field is so restricted Southwest Airlines virtually runs the place.
Hargroveís presentation was, at best, premature. Both the Times and Reg failed to ask--or at least to reveal to mention--that Hargrove has so far only had time to model departing and arriving El Toro planes to a distance of 10 miles. But even that revealed an interesting and potentially explosive fact: Hargroveís model put departing planes over the city of Orange. That would make El Toro a county-wide issue. Bet youíre glad the papers missed that one.
It was also nice for you that the papers kept silent about how you answered Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilsonís questions concerning where pilots would go if they lost an engine on takeoff with ìWe donít know right nowî or safety questions with ìWeíre not talking about that today.î They seemed like reasonable questions: you set up the presentation to show that El Toro is ìsafe,î and thatís certainly how the Times and Reg reported it. Hargrove herself said, ìSafety is of paramount importance in the airspace modeling process.î
One piece of advice: donít get too cocky. Mentioning the American Airlines letter--the one that says the airline thinks El Toro is safe--is really asking for trouble. The Register did point out that Hargroveís own consulting firm, SABRE Decision Technologies, is 80 percent owned by American Airlines. Some might call that a conflict of interest.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 46--
The $4.9 Billion Exaggeration
by Anthony Pignataro Jan. 16, 1998
During her now-infamous November 20, 1997 El Toro presentation to the solidly pro-airport Orange County Business Council, County CEO Jan Mittermeier said some wild things. But since the Council and County officials denied entrance to airport opponents, we had to wait until last week to find out just how wild.
According to the speaking outline Mittermeier sent us following a public records request, the CEO did little other than preach to the converted. The moral of her sermon: ì96 percent of Orange County cargo is transported through airports other than [John Wayne Airport] which, according to Chapman University economist James Doti is the equivalent of $4.9 billion in lost annual revenue.î
ìThat number is ridiculous,î said Larry Agran, former Irvine mayor and current head of the El Toro opposition group Project í99. ìThatís overstated by a factor of 10 at least.î
In fact, Doti himself denies he or Chapman University created the number.
The $4.9 billion figure, circulated widely through pro-airport circles, illustrates the boosterís desperation. A month after Mittermeierís speech, the county board of supervisors voted 3-2 to ìstudyî a county plan to start flying commercial cargo jets into El Toro immediately, despite objections by both the Marines and U.S. Congressman Christopher Cox.
United Parcel Service and Federal Express currently fly one cargo jet out of John Wayne each day. UPS has already told the county it doesnít ìanticipate any need for more than the one flight we currently operate.î UPS sees no need for more flights because the demand simply doesnít exist. The Weekly reported back in May (El Toro Airport Watch No. 15) that the high tech companies of the Irvine Spectrum are doing all they can to eliminate shipping needs--a story the Times OC finally picked up last month.
But if the county gets its way, itís pretty clear who will fly those first cargo planes. Claiming that ìairport facilities in Orange County are inadequate to meet local demand,î Federal Express wrote the county in February 1996 urging support for El Toro. FedEx then cut a deal with the Irvine Co. last October for an 11.7 acre ìbuild-to-suit distribution centerî in the Irvine Spectrum, just yards from the base. When completed, the site will be ìthe largest facility of its kind in the western United States.î
ìThe Irvine Co. isnít going to sell 11 acres unless they know what is going to happen,î said Agran. ìIf this is to push air cargo, thatís an outrage.î In 1996, FedEx gave over $1.1 million to both the Democratic and Republican Parties--a fact which makes Agran ìnervous.î UPS donated $163,000 that same year, also to both parties. Irvine Co. representatives didnít respond to the Weeklyís calls for comment by press time.
El Toro Airport Watch No. 45--
The Big Spin
By Anthony Pignataro January 9, 1998
Ever since August, when Nelson Communications Group first proposed that the County develop a ìgrass-roots campaign fabricî to counter the homeownersí associations and citizensí groups arrayed against its El Toro plans, opposition leaders have steadied for a media onslaught. That onslaught finally began shortly before Christmas when the county released Opportunity Ahead--issue one of the countyís pro-airport newsletter. The first victims: county taxpayers.
The cornerstone of Nelsonís $329,000 pro-airport public-relations campaign, the newsletter sports a cool new logo showing a purple triangle (the Orange County Register called it ìa stylized airplaneî) flying around a green oval. Itís full of highly-detailed information concerning the base reuse process, but it contains little to counter opposition statements that the proposed airport will saturate the South County with noise, traffic and pollution.
In fact, the section of the newsletter dealing with lawsuits says nothing about San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnellís recent decision that the countyís El Toro Draft Environmental Impact Report misrepresents noise, traffic and pollution impacts. For example, a box labeled ìSound Advice,î states that ìthere are virtually no areas where noise levels would increase compared with todayís military flight noise.î That may be true, but South County residents are worried that the proposed airportís vastly greater number--not level--of noise events will make life unbearable.
Perhaps Nelson ought to take the pro-airport Orange County Business Councilís advice on this matter. According to notes on a Sept. 16 Business Council El Toro briefing, pro-airport spin doctors should ìfocus communications on getting the truth (facts) out and keeping the process going, and away from specific issues (noise, traffic, etc.).î
Obviously, governments are poor revolutionary instruments. Thatís why other, largely corporate pro-airport groups have decided to open their own guerrilla fronts. The Newport Beach-based Airport Working Group is preparing to send out ìtruth squadsî as well as yet another pro-airport newsletter. The Newport Beach/Costa Mesa Daily Pilot even got into the act, printing a hotline number concerned citizens could call to give advice ìfor those who want to see an airport at El Toro.î
But itís the city of Newport thatís throwing around the big bucks. Earlier this month the city hired former 3rd District Supervisor (and Irvine Co. lobbyist) Don Saltarelli to advise the city on its efforts to head off Irvineís bid to annex the El Toro base.
Exemplifying the worst kind of hypocrisy, Saltarelli said after his hiring that Newport has ìthe duty to protect their constituents...I think the city is being very wise in being very vigilant.î
Which is what Irvine and all the South County cities have been doing all along.
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