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ETRPA POINTS TO DEIR AS FATAL FLAW IN AIRPORT PLAN
The 8 Member Cities and 13 Affiliate/Associate Members raise more than 1,000 questions regarding the proposed El Toro Airport

IRVINE, CA – February 22, 2000 --  Today, the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority submitted nearly 500 pages and well over 1,000 questions to the County of Orange in response to EIR 573 regarding the proposed El Toro Airport.   In addition, ETRPA submitted new analyses and modeling to substantiate the organizations’ claim that the county has seriously underestimated negative impacts and overestimated demand for the proposed airport at El Toro.

“After spending more than $40 million dollars on an unworkable airport, the county has handed us a 10,000 page description of a ‘fatally flawed’ airport plan.   The  proposed airport at El Toro, as planned by the County of Orange, will create significant adverse impacts on surrounding communities, create an unsafe and unworkable airport operation and will offer far less economic benefits than the non-aviation Millennium Plan,”  said Susan Withrow, Chairman of ETRPA.

ETRPA believes there are many issues that will ultimately render EIR 573 invalid.  Some of the more significant findings and observations from ETRPA’s review include:

* The county does not demonstrate it has legal authority to limit the use of El Toro or John Wayne.  Without legal authority, the two airport system is not feasible.  It is likely that John Wayne would close and El Toro would exceed 28.8 MAP.

* ETRPA questions the underlying assumptions of the DEIR’s traffic analysis. Among them are claims that currently Orange County’s freeways near El Toro do not experience deficient levels of service under existing conditions. The county assumes no freeway mainline improvements will be needed with the proposed project. The county uses different trip generation rates to analyze JWA than they use to analyze El Toro.  The analysis of JWA traffic is based on actual counts. If  the county had used the same methodology at El Toro the study would show that county planners have underestimated El Toro’s traffic by 70%.

* The EIR uses an analysis of air quality impacts that was rejected by the trial court with regard to EIR 563 and affirmed by the Court of Appeal. Since neither the county, the SCAQMD nor the State of California can regulate emissions from aircraft in flight, the conclusions that significant amounts of new regional pollution will be mitigated to a level below significance is incorrect.  Judge McConnell has already reached this conclusion with the County's supplemental analysis for EIR 563.

* The county has not resolved inherent safety problems. The Airport System Master Plan continues to operate under the assumption that heavy, passenger laden commercial aircraft can operate under essentially the same parameters as relatively small and comparatively light high performance military jet aircraft. In an emergency situation pilots will have extraordinary difficulty navigating heavy aircraft safely due to terrain and wind conditions.

* The economic analysis is unrealistic, unsubstantiated and fails to offer any realistic or downside scenarios.   Prudent planners would look at a variety of “what if” scenarios that could occur if the project does not meet the county’s aggressive capacity rates.  The county’s share of the economic benefits will be less than projected given the fact that 30% of onsite employees are assumed to come from outside the county, and the jobs created by the airport will average $27,000 per year compared to the average $42,000 per year generated by the non-aviation Millennium Plan.

* The DEIR  uses outdated and unsubstantiated statements to discard alternative airport sites for passengers and cargo.  The DEIR aviation demand forecasts chose to ignore the relatively attractive locations of Long Beach and Ontario airports for North Orange County residents.  The DEIR also ignores studies indicating that the March Inland Cargo Port (Riverside County) and The Southern California Logistics Airport (Victorville) can handle all of Orange County’s current and future cargo needs.

ETRPA believes that based on the Draft Environmental Impact Report, the county should acknowledge that the plans for an airport at El Toro are seriously flawed and adopt the non-aviation alternative that benefits all of Orange County.