Rohrabacher's July 11, 2001 letter to the Department of Defense, and a brief August 13 initial response from H. T. Johnson, were obtained by this website throught a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Ricardo Bernal, Rohrabacher's press contact, did not return several phonecalls requesting copies of the Navy correspondence cited in the Congressman's November 1 release. A September 14, 2001 letter from H. T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary of the Navy - thought to be the basis for Rohrabacher's claims - was was obtained through other sources.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Ricardo Bernal
November 1, 2001
(202) 225-2415

Rohrabacher Cites Navy Correspondence As Undermining Legality And Feasibility Of Proposed "Great Park"At El Toro

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) today reiterated his strong support for an airport reuse of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro property, citing correspondence from the Department of the Navy describing numerous problems associated with the so-called "Great Park" Plan advocated by airport opponents.

"After reviewing correspondence from H.T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Installations and Environment, it appears that advocates of a 'Great Park' reuse of El Toro would face tremendous legal, economic, and environmental hurdles," Rohrabacher said.

The Millenium Plan, also known as the Great Park Plan, includes a mixture of park and economic uses. While a local Orange County government could, in theory, make an application for a public benefit conveyance for park land, according to the Department of the Navy that municipality would be ineligible to seek an economic development conveyance and would therefore have to purchase the land at a public sale to the highest bidder.

"Either local governments would have to spend a fortune in taxpayer dollars to acquire all of the property or other purchasers would be able to use the land in a manner totally inconsistent with a park," Rohrabacher stated. "In any event, the resulting land acquisition costs or lack of revenue producing property would make the park even more financially unfeasible than it is under the current proposal."

Even aside from cost issues, Rohrabacher also pointed out other environmental problems with changing direction on the reuse plan for El Toro.

"The Navy clearly states that it cannot evaluate any proposed new use of the El Toro property until all of the NEPA [the National Environmental Policy Act] requirements are met. A lengthy new environmental analysis would have to begin that could take years. There's no guarantee that the Navy would determine that this former air station property is suitable for a park. At a minimum, the taxpayers, and not the Navy, would be forced to pay untold millions of dollars in environmental remediation costs to clean that land to the standards for a public park, taking even more years."

Rohrabacher believes that this new Department of Navy response should receive significant weight. "Anyone who believes that a 'Great Park' option does not have serious legal, economic, and environmental problems hasn't been exposed to all of the issues," Rohrabacher concluded.