There’s Still No Shortage of Opinions on El Toro

* I am sick of seeing references in print to the “existing airport at El Toro.” It is time to clear the air. There has never been an airport at El Toro.

There has, since the 1940s, been a Marine Corps Air Station--huge difference.

Prospective home buyers in the area were warned, prior to purchasing property, that the air base was there. Nobody ever said anything about a 24-hour-a-day international airport.

The Marines were good neighbors. Yes, their flights were noisy and disruptive, but they were also infrequent and short.

They added no visible air pollution and had no impact on traffic congestion. We all have to question the morality of building an international airport in an established urban area.

ROGER PENNINGTON

Lake Forest

* For over 30 years the county has been searching for another airport to meet growing (south) Orange County air travel and air cargo demand.

And now Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) wants to sell off the former Marine Corps Air Station for shopping malls and housing tracts? He’s got to be kidding.

NORM EWERS

Irvine

* I would like to thank the Orange County supervisors for holding a public meeting on the El Toro flight tests. Consensus was reached, their mandate clearly given, if they were listening.

Consensus: Newport Beach and South County residents confirmed and agreed that living near an airport destroys your quality of life and mitigation measures (such as insulating homes and limiting flights) do not work.

Mandate: Find a way to reduce flights and eventually close John Wayne Airport, do not build an airport at El Toro, and partner with San Diego, Ontario and other communities to build airports in places like Ontario and Camp Pendleton where airports are wanted.

Do not severely impact residential communities like those surrounding John Wayne and El Toro.

We elected our county supervisors to work hard to satisfy all residents of Orange County.

RICK NEEDHAM

Aliso Viejo

* A lot of the people who are against a commercial airport at El Toro seem to be missing an important point.

Like it or not, this area needs more airport capacity. Anyone who thinks that driving to LAX or Ontario, etc., is a viable alternative must not do a lot of traveling.

However, just because more capacity is needed does not mean that it has to be built at El Toro. Why aren’t more people looking into expanding John Wayne Airport?

It would be much cheaper and safer. The pilot groups like this idea. No new communities would be affected by the introduction of another airport, and the estimated yearly physical capacity is about 20 million passengers.

The current capacity is about 8 million passengers due to legal reasons, but these restrictions will expire in 2005.

Instead of just being anti-airport, the South County groups should include an expansion of John Wayne in any non-aviation proposals for El Toro and thus offer a practical, safer alternative that is not simply anti-airport.

ANTHONY BREWSTER

Laguna Niguel

* I sure wish these people would get their minds out of the airport.

I can think of a zillion better ways to use 4,700 beautiful acres, surrounded by 2.5 million souls in search of peace and tranquillity.

ART STANLOW

Costa Mesa

* I’m weary of the increasingly bitter war of words between the pro-airport and anti-airport factions.

I can understand why the communities near El Toro do not want an airport with round-the-clock operating hours, regardless of the surrounding buffer zone.

By the same token, it’s reasonable that communities near John Wayne Airport, which currently supports the entire county, do not want that airport expanded.

I challenge the Board of Supervisors and all Orange County city officials to work together on a new plan. There must be a way to utilize both airports so that no Orange County citizens have to live with excessive air traffic.

LYNN WALLACE

Costa Mesa

* Living under the flight path of John Wayne Airport, I have a few comments for those in South County who continually state it would be better to expand John Wayne rather than use El Toro for a commercial airport.

My neighbors and I moved to Newport Beach with the promise that the small airfield now known as John Wayne Airport would never expand and certainly never have commercial flights. That was believable because the one small airstrip was used only by private airplanes and the land-bound airport did not seem qualified for much more.

To our amazement, they did expand the facility and allow commercial jets, even though to do so required questionably steep take-off and landing maneuvers. Some would even say dangerous.

Due to our close proximity to the airport, the resultant effect of noise and pollution upon our community has been significant. Yet we understood the necessity of this airport to the majority of Orange County residents and have adjusted.

However, if John Wayne is allowed to expand once again, it will be monumentally destructive. To alter its size to accommodate the county’s growing air traffic would mean the airport’s borders would have to expand into our community.

Homes and businesses would need to be eliminated. The airport’s new boundaries and resultant impact would intrude even further into our city. Upper Newport Bay, one of the few remaining homes to [endangered species of] birds and wildlife, would be in danger.

For them to suggest we endure even more so that their community is left untouched is offensively self-serving.

Residents near John Wayne have carried the burden of our county’s air traffic for years. Is it unreasonable to expect those in South County to share in that responsibility, especially since they are the cities that now use John Wayne the most?

EDWARD P. BENSON

Newport Beach

* I have heard enough whining from South County residents regarding an El Toro airport. I would give their complaints much more consideration had they moved in prior to an airfield being there.

CHARLES HANSEN

Rancho Santa Margarita

* We all missed the important point on the El Toro issue. How will we travel tomorrow?

The population is increasing every day. Therefore we need more air transportation. That’s called progress.

BEATRICE SANSONE

Newport Beach