Published in the LA Times, Sunday, January 21, 2001

         FAA Builds a Stone Wall Around El Toro
         The aviation agency is an ally of airport supporters, and it helps by withholding
         public information.

         By LEONARD KRANSER
 

             It came as no surprise that the Federal Aviation Administration refused to
         answer key questions about the recent test flights at El Toro. Local FAA officials, in
         alliance with county employees, continually withhold information from the public
         about the flight paths and environmental impacts of their airport proposals.
             Since 1998, I have submitted 11 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to
         the FAA on behalf of Orange County residents. Bureaucrats have stonewalled, and
         documents that could shed light on the plans for El Toro and John Wayne are
         systematically withheld.
             The Freedom of Information Act is intended to give citizens access to federal
         documents. Federal agencies are required to disclose records, except for exempt
         trade secrets, personal privacy and sensitive law enforcement and national security
         matters. Even exempt documents can be disclosed "when that would not cause any
         foreseeable harm." The FAA makes a joke of the FOIA law. It hides El Toro
         documents or claims that their exposure would "harm" the free exchange of ideas
         between federal employees.
             For example, one recent request for three months' worth of El Toro-related
         documents, e-mails and meeting notes brought this belated response: "A records
         search was conducted . . . [and] did not find any documents on file pertaining to
         your specific request, and we are unaware of any other offices likely to possess
         additional responsive records."
             Do you believe that the FAA is planning the future of El Toro and John
         Wayne without keeping any written records?
              Nevertheless, I keep submitting requests, because they can produce rare glimpses
         inside the FAA bureaucracy. One FOIA request unearthed this key e-mail between
         managers in the Air Traffic Division: "Especially after our experience with the [June
         1999] flight demonstration, I am concerned that the Airports Division is not going to
         let us comment on anything to do with El Toro. Thus we may eventually be stuck
         with an airport layout that, while it looks great by itself on paper, is virtually
         unusable from an integrated ATC [Air Traffic Control] standpoint. . . . I do not look
         forward to the years of safety problems and litigation we might undergo as we work
         to fix a bad initial plan."
              Disclosure of this e-mail and its publication on the El Toro Airport Web site and
         in the newspapers provoked a flurry of internal FAA correspondence. We know this
         from my next FOIA request. After waiting almost six months, I received a long list
         of documents being withheld from the public. It included eight pages of internal
         messages regarding the apparently accidental release of the Air Traffic Division
         e-mail quoted above. Since then, the FAA has been careful to hide its internal
         dissent.
              The FAA cover letter also said the agency "is withholding records related to the
         Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that the FAA is preparing, the
         EIS that the Navy is preparing and the FAA review of airspace and flight safety
         aspects of Orange County's operational plan for the proposed El Toro airport." In
         other words, there's a plan but citizens can't see its environmental and safety
         impacts.
              Last July after waiting seven months, I received a response to a 1999 FOIA
         request. The regional administrator sent me only two pages from the public Federal
         Register. He withheld "35 pages of [unidentified] documents." After four more
         months and nine phone calls, I obtained the list of withheld documents. Most were
         from Orange County's El Toro staff, which also hides information from the public.
              Recently, Supervisor Tom Wilson asked for the FAA's study of the crowded
         airspace over Orange County. Herman Bliss, head of the FAA's regional airports
         division, refused to release the report. A sympathetic insider subsequently "leaked"
         it. The MITRE report is now on the El Toro airport Web site at
         http://www.eltoroairport.org. It reveals serious airspace conflicts between planes
         from El Toro, LAX and John Wayne.
              John Wayne Airport may be closed. The county's official Community Reuse
         Plan, submitted to the federal government, states that "all commercial aviation
         operations at John Wayne Airport would be moved to the MCAS El Toro site." The
         FAA is keeping mum on this. However, the air traffic controllers union, the Air Line
         Pilots Assn. and aviation industry leaders have said that economics and safety make
         the two airports incompatible.
              Experience shows that Bliss and William Withycombe, the FAA western regional
         administrator, are allies of El Toro airport supporters in the county. They repeatedly
         refuse public access to vital data on the safety, efficiency and environmental impacts
         of their plans for the two airports. The information that has gotten out has served to
         turn majority opinion in Orange County against the El Toro project.
              The public is being stonewalled while millions of dollars continue to be wasted on
         a new airport that is unsafe, unneeded and unwanted by the residents of this county.
                                      - - -

         Leonard Kranser Is Editor of the El Toro Airport Web Site.
 
 

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