Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad, Ed.D
Orange County Board of Supervisors
10 Civic Center Plaza, 5th Floor
Santa Ana, CA 92701
I write on behalf of the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) to request that the Board continue the public hearing now scheduled for September 17 on EIR 573 and the proposed airport system master plan.
As you know, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had scheduled its release of its airspace analysis of the proposed El Toro airport for September 12, along with public official and agency briefings on the analysis. However, the national tragedy yesterday in New York City and Washington, D. C. has resulted in the complete halt to all aircraft operations in the United States. Under these circumstances, the FAA has quite understandably cancelled the proposed release and briefings and turned its attention to matters of more immediacy.
We believe that the FAA analysis will have extremely significant adverse implications for the proposed El Toro airport. We also expect that the analysis will necessarily lead to changes in proposed operations and/or runway configurations before any airport could be operated safely in the context of existing Southern California airport operations. The analysis will also affect the County’s proposed responses to numerous comments in the Final EIR 573, since the FAA’s analysis very likely contradicts a prior letter from a lower-level FAA employee on which the County has relied extensively.
The analysis will thus have not only significant safety implications, but also environmental implications, that should be carefully considered before the Board takes the momentous step of considering EIR 573 or approving any airport system master plan. The environmental implications of the FAA analysis will affect, among others, at least the County’s noise and air pollution analyses in EIR 573. The County therefore should not be considering any certification of EIR 573 or approval of the Airport System Master Plan in light of the new information the FAA analysis will provide and the changes it will almost certainly require.
Given the extraordinary tragedy that occurred yesterday, the loss of lives of thousands of innocent civilians, the imminent release of the FAA report and its importance for the County’s environmental and airport system master plan decisions, it would be an extraordinary abuse of discretion for the County to proceed on September 17. The decisions that are scheduled for that date ought to be taken only after full and careful analysis of all of the relevant information.
If the County proceeds, it will in effect be taking advantage of the loss of thousands of lives and the resulting delay in the release of the FAA report in order to push forward precipitously with its decisions. Under all of these circumstances, if the Board proceeds on the 17th, ETRPA is confident the courts will send the matter back to the Board for further review when the FAA analysis is released.
ETRPA therefore requests that you continue the matter, in order to address the critical implications of this analysis. At a minimum, the continuance should be for a sufficient time for release of the FAA analysis and review of it by both the County and interested citizens.
Under the circumstances, that is the only morally and politically responsible course for the County to take.
Yours very truly,
Paul D. Eckles
Executive Director