Project 99 Newsletter, July 1999

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

Dear Neighbor,

Will we stop El Toro International Airport and create a sensible non-aviation reuse plan for the 4700-acre El Toro Marine Corps Base? YES! The signs point to victory ahead.

* On June 16, nearly 1,000 vocal opponents of El Toro Airport filled Aliso Niguel High School's theater in an El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) "Sound Off" forum. Opposition to the airport has increased, ever since the County's June 4-5 flight demonstrations.

* In a June 14 letter, American Airlines Executive Vice President of Operations, Robert W. Baker confirmed his airlines' grave concerns about the use of El Toro runways that require takeoffs towards the mountains.

* On June 18, the Orange County chapter of the American Planning Association awarded one of its comprehensive planning awards for excellence to the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority for the group's non-aviation Millennium Plan.

* On July 6, the City of Irvine began its display of an anti-airport banner at City Hall (seen at right). The sign counts the days of victory for a non-aviation future at El Toro and is just the first wave of Irvine's anti-airport publicity campaign.

* On July 7, the Safe & Healthy Communities petition drive - designed to block the proposed El Toro commercial airport reached 100,000 signatures on the way to a goal of 170,000 by Summer's end.

* Project 99's Summer release of our second compact disc, entitled Take the Test! has been greeted by rave reviews. Featured on UPN news, this handy audio tool allows you to conduct your own "noise test" at home. If you'd like a copy of the CD, use this month's enclosed reply form.

Remember, these small but significant victories are paving the way for bigger victories ahead. As always, thanks again for your continuing support!

Farewell to MCAS El Toro
The Historic Marine Corps Base Closes, Opening a New Non-Aviation Chapter in Orange County History


Friday, July 2, 1999 marked the beginning of a dynamic future for Orange County. After 56 years of operation, El Toro Marine Corps Air Base officially closed its doors and moved most of its personnel and equipment 80 miles south to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego.  During its years of service, the base played a critical role in dozens of conflicts around the globe, including World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm. During those same years, the bean fields and dirt roads that surrounded El Toro were transformed into one of the most highly-developed suburban communities in the country.   At closing ceremonies, the base's final official moments were marked by a World War II-era F4U Corsair's symbolic touch-and-go landing, and a flyover by two F/A-18 Hornets. As those vintage aircraft left, they ushered in a non-event. County officials had once promised that on July 2 commercial air cargo operations would begin at El Toro.  But that never happened.the County has been blocked at every turn. The commercial airport plan for El Toro - a plan that would have created mostly low-paying jobs in environmentally unfriendly surroundings - was a bad idea from the beginning. And it looks even worse as time passes.


Orange County's future is the Millennium Plan. Developed by the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA) with the help of Project 99 and other community organizations, this far-reaching plan offers a unique opportunity to expand our economy, enhance our quality of life and create a lasting legacy for future generations. The Millennium Plan will contribute $12.9 billion annually to our economy and will generate 112,000 high-quality jobs countywide. It will provide housing, attract colleges and universities and create a 1,000-acre habitat preserve.. With a Veterans' Memorial in its Central Park district, the Millennium Plan also pays tribute to Orange County's remarkable history.

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Colonel Bill Fox, drew an "X" in a field located at Orange County's geographic center, between the Santa Ana Mountains and the San Joaquin Foothills. That "X" soon became the runway configuration for El Toro. Orange County has changed dramatically since then. We are poised to defeat the El Toro International Airport plan and, instead, embrace the Millennium Plan - a non-aviation reuse plan that would transform El Toro into an economic and open-space hub that enriches the quality of life for all Orange Countians. Farewell to El Toro. Welcome to the future.

The Demand Game

This article first appeared in the OC Weekly on June 24, 1999 and is No. 110 in a series entitled "El Toro Airport Watch." Written by Anthony Pignataro, the "Airport Watch" has won praise throughout Orange County as the most comprehensive investigative reporting on the negative effects of a commercial airport at El Toro. A booklet of the complete collection of the 1997 "El Toro Airport Watch" (Articles 1-44) is still available and can be ordered by calling (714) 544-5410 or emailing Project 99 at Project99@aol.com

After spending a morning in the cargo companies' parking lots along the John Wayne Airport (JWA) runway, it's difficult to understand why the County is pushing so hard for a much larger international airport at El Toro. Sure, the airliners sit nose-to-tail at 7 a.m. at the end of the runway awaiting final clearance. But by 7:15, the planes are mostly gone, leaving the field to its daily dreariness of one commercial arrival or departure every hour or so.


Orange County officials call this phenomenon "rising demand." They trumpet it everywhere - local meetings, glossy mailers, Supervisor hearings, TV ads. It is the most fundamental argument they have for proposing to send 825 airliners into and out of El Toro every day. Too bad no one in the County can back it up. According to the latest figures produced by the County's John Wayne Airport office, JWA passenger demand decreased 5.4 percent from last year's demand during the same month. That decrease is typical - just two months out of the past 20 showed any increase in passenger usage over the same period the previous year. The other 18 months showed declines of between 0.3 percent and 6.7 percent. Or, to put it another way, 669,749 people flew in and out of JWA in April 1997. During April of this year, just 605,872 people used the airport - 64,000, for whatever reason, went elsewhere.


In 1990, then-assistant airport director Jan Mittermeier (now County executive officer) told the Los Angeles Times that "we expect the number of passengers to increase rapidly to the new cap" of 8.4 million annual passengers. That was eight years ago - JWA air passenger travel is still a full million passengers below federally imposed limits. This is "rising demand"? You want demand - families in Orange County are taking their children to illegal backroom pharmacies because there are so few convenient community health clinics (19, or roughly one for every 100,000 people). Or consider the 57 freeway - or any OC freeway - between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Or the Newport Beach peninsula from May 31 to September 1. Now that's demand.  An odd piece of evidence that the County is playing a game with "demand" came from a three-judge panel in San Diego last week. That panel threw out a 1997 Superior Court ruling finding the County's first El Toro Draft Environmental Impact Report had "minimized" the damage the proposed airport would cause. In an ironic twist, the judges affirmed just one part of the earlier ruling: the judge's conclusion that County officials overestimated demand for El Toro.

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.