Project 99 Newsletter, May 1999

A Plan of Action to Protect and Improve Our Community
A Note from Larry Agran Chair of Project 99

Dear Neighbor,

Earlier this year, the County Board of Supervisors commissioned and mailed a glossy pro-airport advertisement with taxpayers funds. Its title was "Ticket to Tomorrow." On its cover was a photo collage of two children playing as a commercial jet took-off nearby.

Contrary to the County's PR, the reality of their airport plan is a "Ticket to Disaster" for our future. Oblivious to the adverse impact of jet noise on children, the Board of Supervisors continues to promote an airport at El Toro. This in spite of the fact that in 1998, Cornell University researchers confirmed that children who live near airports score lower on tests than children who live in quieter environments.

"We've known for a long time that chronic noise is having a devastating effect on the academic performance of children," says Gary Evans, an international expert on environmental stress.

The Cornell study also pointed to other health concerns related to chronic noise, including hearing damage, chronic cardiovascular activation, elevated annoyance and irritation, motivation problems such as learned helplessness, and impaired cognitive development and reading achievement.

Fortunately, as citizens, we now have a chance to create our own vision for El Toro - a healthier one that would bring a brighter future for our children. Thousands of Orange County voters have already signed the Safe & Healthy Communities Initiative petition that would help defeat the County's proposed noisy and dangerous airport. You can join your neighbors by using the enclosed reply sheet.

As always, all of us at Project 99 thank you again for all your support!

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Making Noise About Noise
County Board of Supervisors' $3 Million Noise Demonstration Proposal Challenged as Wasteful and Dangerous

The Orange County Board of Supervisors is poised to spend $3 million to test your hearing. You heard us right. The county is poised to embark upon the most wasteful taxpayer expenditures ever - a 2-day "noise demonstration" at El Toro Marine Corps Air Base. The City of Irvine is considering legal action to stop it.

The so-called test will involve several dozen commercial jet overflights in a PR stunt to "represent" what a fully operating 24-hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year international airport would sound like. County officials acknowledge that the test will be scientifically worthless, yet they are determined to push ahead.

In response, the City of Irvine is preparing to possibly sue the County in state court, claiming that the overflights would endanger the public while also violating state and federal environmental laws.

"Irvine is ready to go to court to stop this wasteful, dangerous and meaningless test," said Irvine Councilmember Mike Ward. "The only relevant and honest measurement of noise would be a full simulation of the County's planned international airport. In a 24-hour period, that would involved 824 take-offs and landings and produce more noise pollution - and air pollution - than County officials want."

The County's "noise demonstration," if it takes place as planned, will produce no significant results. Here are some of the reasons why:

To date, County tests rely on Community Noise Equivalency Levels (CNEL) - a statistic based on averaging jet noise with the quieter moments in between overflights. This type of testing is very misleading. Noise has a cumulative effect. Even with quiet interludes, repetitive sudden bursts of high-decibel aircraft noise can have an extremely adverse effect on health.

A 1993 study by University of Michigan Professors of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, W.C. Meecham and N.A. Shaw, showed that noise around LAX caused cardiovascular disease to increase 18% for people over 75, suicides to double for people between 45 and 54, accidental deaths to increase 60% for those over 75, and approximately 60 "excess deaths" each year. Tests have also shown that a child's learning abilities decline in noise-affected areas.

Pro-airport County agents have said that their proposed "noise demonstration" need not be "overly realistic." That's not surprising. There's been nothing realistic about any of the pro-airport reports on noise. Take for example the airport advocates' claim that residents will not be impacted by noise averages that are less than 65 decibels.

According to the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA), CNEL data gathered by the Orange County's Noise Abatement Office at John Wayne Airport shows the exact opposite. For the year July 1997 - June 1998, John Wayne received 2,645 noise complaints from residents. Over 98 percent of the John Wayne complaints come from households subjected to less than 65 decibels CNEL.

Most complaints come from areas where noise levels are only half of the 65 CNEL average. The largest concentration of protests come from Newport Beach, where coincidentally, George Argyros, the chief pro-airport financial backer lives.

Another cluster of noise complaints about John Wayne Airport comes from the Tustin/Orange area where a current monitoring station records an average 56 decibels CNEL.

"The County has created a 'bluffer zone' by claiming that no homes are going to be impacted by an airport at El Toro. This is blatantly false," said ETRPA chairperson Susan Withrow. "While County staff equate a 57 CNEL average noise level with "normal conversation," the reality is that aircraft produce noise spikes of power-lawnmower- levels - stopping conversations and disrupting sleep."

The CNEL is an exponential scale, something like a seismograph. On the CNEL scale, 55 is exactly half as loud as 65. In other words, residents have taken the time to pick up the phone and call John Wayne Airport about a noise disturbance that is one-half of what County officials consider the threshold of noise annoyance.

"The question is, why have this costly noise demonstration test at all?" added Councilmember Mike Ward. "It's a complete waste of time and taxpayer money."

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Safe & Healthy Communities Initiative Q & A

What is the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative?

It is a ballot measure that Orange County residents will have a chance to vote for on March 7th, 2000. It changes the way the County plans for certain large and unpopular projects such as jails near homes, airports and toxic landfills. If this measure is passed, the County will have to determine the environmental impacts, costs, and alternatives to these projects and then get approval from two-thirds of the voters before building can begin.

Why do we need this initiative?

County government has repeatedly failed in its duty to conduct a reasonable planning process for many large-scale projects such as jails, landfills and, most recently, the reuse of the Marine Corps Base at El Toro. The County tries to force residential communities to accept a one-sided planning process for these noxious uses before full disclosure and evaluation of their impacts can be assessed. The proponents of the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative want to prevent this type of backwards "ready-fire-aim" planning from ever occurring again.

What led to this initiative?

During the recession in the early 1990s, special interests spent millions of dollars to fund a ballot-box planning initiative known as Measure A. Sold as a jobs-generating program, it effectively changed the County's general plan for El Toro from a military base to an international commercial airport. The County launched a divisive, costly and one-sided planning process to force an airport onto the base property before the area's highest and best use could be fully analyzed and agreed upon.

Who benefits from the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative?

All citizens of Orange County will benefit. The Safe and Healthy Communties Initiative prevents special interests from imposing large-scale, potentially harmful facilities on communities without proper planning.

Will this hurt our economic growth?

Absolutely not. This initiative does not affect normal planning and zoning processes for housing, commercial development, roads, utilities and other standard projects to support economic growth. In fact, it could help the economy by eliminating anxiety over projects that hurt business and residential property values.

How will the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative affect the planning for El Toro?

The act does not specifically prohibit an airport at El Toro, nor does it reverse Measure A. However, in order for an airport to be built at El Toro, it would require a two-thirds majority vote by Orange County citizens after its impacts were fully disclosed. In order to obtain this majority, there would need to be a widespread consensus that an airport at El Toro was the best option for this property.

How will this initiative affect the expansion or construction of airports at other sites?

The communities surrounding John Wayne Airport, The Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station or the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station - any community concerned about a potential commercial airport at other military sites or general aviation airports - would benefit from the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative. Why? Because the Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative would require a two-thirds countywide majority vote before such a project could be built.

Questions and answers courtesy of the Safe and Healthy Communities Website: www.safe-and-healthy.org

Project 99 is a special project of the Tides Center, a duly registered public charity. Donations to Project 99/Tides Center are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.