CURRENT NEWS ISSUES
Letter to WSJ
Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2000
“New Study Questions Bigger LAX” (WSJ - October 4, 2000) creates the impression that the former El Toro Marine base, in Orange County, is a potential new Southern California airport. Conversion of El Toro is a multi-billion dollar folly that flies in the face of topographical, political, and logistical realities.
Mountains and residential communities encircle the base. The Airline Pilots Association, representing 55,000 commercial pilots and 51 airlines, has repeatedly stated its objections to proposed takeoffs over the mountains with passenger aircraft, using runways built for Marine aviators in jet fighters. Alternate flight paths threaten residential communities whose encroachment played a role in the Marines’ decision to close the base. A retirement community of almost 20,000 seniors is under the proposed final approach.
Orange County voters have made clear that they will not allow an airport at El Toro. By a 67.3 percent landslide, they recently enacted a law requiring that any airport plans must be submitted to the voters for approval. It will not happen. Every recent independent poll shows that a solid majority of residents are opposed to building a second airport, just seven miles away from the county’s currently underutilized John Wayne airport.
Logistically, Orange County is the wrong place for another major airport. It is almost built out. A housing shortage forces workers to commute from surrounding counties over clogged roads. Housing within economic reach of low paid airport employees is almost non-existent. Access for regional passengers, fuel trucks and cargo is problematic. A court has yet to approve the 1996 air pollution analysis for an airport at El Toro. Even the sky overhead is some of the nation’s most crowded.
On the other hand, LAX-operated Ontario International Airport east of Los Angeles, and Palmdale to the west, are seriously underused. Three closed military airbases in the growing inland areas of Riverside and San Bernadino Counties - where the population is projected to top 5.5 million by 2020 - are looking for airport development. The next Southern California airport should go where open terrain, political reality, and logistics are in favorable convergence.
Leonard Kranser
Editor, El Toro Airport website