Park [is the ] Cleanest Use for El Toro
OC Register Guest Column, Sunday, February 3, 2002

Backers of a an airport at El Toro - struggling to salvage their unpopular project - have elevated soil pollution to a political issue. Attorney Greg Hurley's column ("Irvine Downplays Health Hazard", Register Commentary, January 20) is the latest misleading example.  Nothing in the column identifies that Hurley was paid by the Airport Working Group to advocate their case. This Newport Beach-based group is campaigning for an El Toro Airport so as to reduce the use of John Wayne.

Today, there are scattered pockets of pollutants in El Toro's soil.  That is a poor reason to turn the land into a huge regional passenger and cargo airport.  If the former base is dirty, we should not allow the government to leave it dirty - and then add more airport pollution on top of what already exists.

The worst health risk at El Toro will come from airport poisoned air.

Airports sicken people who don't even use them. Each day, airplanes will deposit tons of cancer producing chemicals, carbon monoxide and lung damaging particles over Orange County. Just one DC-10 takeoff has been calculated to generate the pollution from 21,530 cars driving one mile at 30 mph.

Scientists who worked on Orange County's air quality study wrote a report on El Toro's resultant "Excess Incremental Lifetime Cancer Risk" from air borne carcinogen levels far in excess of Environmental Protection Agency standards. Another environmental expert studied the inversion layer over Orange County and concluded that these contaminants frequently will be trapped in a fog layer over our communities.

A recent report on increased cancer risk near Chicago's O'Hare Airport confirms the findings for an El Toro airport.  O'Hare is the top producer of hazardous and toxic emissions in the state of Illinois.

A 1999 study by a Boston suburb found that for the most common respiratory diseases - asthma and allergy - are twice as common in neighborhoods near the airport.

Toxins in the ground must be removed for any reuse

The second health risk from El Toro is one that occurs regardless of the use to which the base is put. Chemicals in the ground are seeping down into our water supply.  Just weeks ago, a County consultant warned the Board of Supervisors of contamination from underground storage tanks, transformers and the base runways themselves, where fuel may have spilled or metals from aircraft may have drifted into nearby soil.

Whatever use is made of the base, toxic materials must be removed before they poison our water, our farm products, the Back Bay or our beaches. Paving over the chemicals will not stop them from spreading into the ground water.

It may take time, but the toxins must be removed to protect us from chemicals that the military left behind. The Department of Navy recognizes that cleanup is their responsibility.  Under the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund Law, the polluter must pay.

Direct contact is a minimal risk

There is relatively little risk from physical contact with chemicals in the soil.  Tens of thousands of Marines, and their families, lived, worked, gone to school and played at El Toro for years with no adverse health effects.

Common sense, in planning where facilities are built, will avoid the capped landfills. They occupy relatively few of the base's 4,700 acres. Eventually, the federal government will be required to render them safe. In the interim, park reuse can work around, and avoid, these areas.

If anything, the massive digging required to build an airport creates the greatest risk of pollutants being spread and carried into the air. The County's environmental impact report identifies a significant air pollution problem created by this construction. The County intends to tear up several of the military runways and move them, since they are too close together and too steep for civilian operations. It will be the largest earth-moving project in county history.

Pollution in the soil at El Toro can and will be removed, so that it does not poison our water supply, under any reuse scenario. On the other hand, airport air pollution - the far greater health risk - only can be avoided by eliminating the airport.

County politicians are poised to build a huge airport at El Toro unless voters stop the project on March 5th.  Our votes can dedicate the former Marine base to non-polluting, low traffic generating, non-aviation uses - like parks, schools, museums, research facilities, sports venues and health care centers.

The OC Central Park and Nature Preserve initiative was conceived to protect the air we breathe each day.  Vote "Yes" on Measure W in March, to prevent airport air pollution. "Yes" on W, the OC Central Park and Nature Preserve Initiative, is the healthy choice.

Leonard Kranser
Editor, El Toro Airport InfoSite

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