Project '99 Newsletter, December 1997
A Note from Larry Agran Chair of Project ’99
Dear Neighbor,
Slowly but surely, we are winning the hearts and minds of our Orange County neighbors. The recently published UCI 1997 Orange County Annual Survey revealed growing countywide opposition to El Toro International Airport: 48% of residents now oppose the County’s airport plan; only 41% favor it.
These results confirm the soundness of our two-part Project 99 strategy: First, expose the damage that an airport at El Toro would bring; and, second, help develop a non-aviation reuse plan that is environmentally and economically superior.
Having a sound strategy is one thing — but it takes programs and research and public education to successfully implement that strategy. That’s what Project 99 has been doing throughout 1997. With the support of 10,000 donors, in 1997 we managed to reach 250,000 Orange County households with our Project 99 message and materials. As impressive as this has been, in 1998 we need to step up these efforts in all parts of Orange County.
That’s why we need your continuing commitment to our shared cause. If you’ve already made a year-end donation renewing your support of Project 99, thank you! If you haven’t yet gotten around to it, please use the enclosed memo and reply form to mail your 1998 renewal back to us today. Project 99 is a non-profit grassroots organization which relies on individual contributions to carry on our work. Remember, because we are affiliated with the nationally respected Tides Center, donations to Project 99/Tides Center are tax-deductible to the extent permitted under federal and state law.
Onward to 1998!
Project 99 Year-End Report
1997 Will Be Remembered As “The Turnaround Year”
It’s been a long time coming, but most analysts agree: In the prolonged struggle to determine the future of the Marine Corps Base at El Toro, the momentum is shifting.
From 1993 through 1996, proponents of a massive international airport at El Toro pretty much had things their way. In 1994, they hijacked the federal base closure and reuse process by qualifying an initiative for the County ballot. The initiative, known as Measure A, provided for the County to take over the entire reuse process and build a commercial airport at El Toro. Faced with a hasty choice between building an airport or doing nothing, in November of 1994 voters approved Measure A by the narrowest of margins, 51% to 49%. In 1996, the voters turned down a proposition to repeal Measure A.
These ballot-box results seemed to embolden the Board of Supervisors. On December 11, 1996, the County Supervisors gave rubber-stamp approval to El Toro International Airport and to the environmental impact report (EIR) in support of their plan. As 1996 ended, airport opponents — and their best arguments — were totally disregarded. Airport proponents were triumphant.
But since then a powerful two-part strategy has taken hold:
Part 1 — Exposing A Bad Idea
When the County Supervisors “certified” the EIR for El Toro International Airport, they envisioned a facility the size of San Francisco International right in the middle of the Saddleback Valley. The EIR called for around-the-clock air cargo and air passenger operations, with an average of 1225 takeoffs and landings every 24 hours. The County Supervisors and staff tried to pretend that there would be very little or no adverse environmental impact from El Toro International — they even claimed the airport would benefit the environment by reducing auto traffic and air pollution!
To expose this nonsense, earlier in 1996, Project 99 organized a 100-member citizen task force to review the County’s Draft EIR from top to bottom. The result was publication of a 141-page breakthrough document entitled In Defense of Our Community: The Case Against El Toro International Airport. The report included the first map honestly depicting proposed takeoff and landing patterns at El Toro. The report also raised 1568 specific questions about the County’s Draft EIR — questions about effects on public health and safety, damaging socio-economic impacts, and destruction of wildlife habitat.
In Defense of Our Community was followed by more than a dozen separate press briefings featuring airline pilots, business leaders, property appraisal experts and other experts who described the dangerous flaws in the County’s airport plan and EIR.
Then, to provide some honest answers about aircraft noise, Project 99 produced a compact disc, Under the Flight Path: The Sounds and Impacts of Commercial Aircraft Taking Off and Landing. With four minutes of narration and 68 minutes of intermittent noise from commercial aircraft, the CD has allowed thousands of Orange County residents to conduct their own “in-home” noise test.
Project 99’s research and public information campaign was recently vindicated when, in November, Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell ruled that the County’s EIR for El Toro ran afoul of the California Environmental Quality Act. Despite its $3 million cost, the judge found that the County’s EIR failed to honestly disclose the noise, air pollution, traffic and other dangerous impacts an international airport would surely have. County staff will now have to go back and redo major portions of the EIR — a serious setback for airport proponents and a sign of more legal trouble to come.
Judge McConnell’s ruling came in response to a con- solidated lawsuit brought by the El Toro Reuse Planning Authority (ETRPA), which is the anti-airport public agency comprised of South County and Central County cities, and Taxpayers for Responsible Planning, one of the leading anti-airport citizen groups.
Part 2 — Proposing Better Ideas
Throughout 1997, Project 99 took the lead in developing A Real Choice for a Better Future — a non-aviation reuse plan for El Toro that would include many productive and attractive land uses such as: a large central park with a major library and modern museums; high-tech research and industrial parks that employ tens of thousands of people; colleges and universities and learning centers; an arts and entertainment complex; sports and recreation facilities; and a vast wildlife preserve. With over 4700 acres (7.2 square miles), the El Toro Base can accommodate all of these non-aviation uses and many more: retail shopping; a “pedestrian-friendly” downtown connected by a monorail; and a beautiful veterans memorial garden. While these non-aviation uses are mutually compatible, they are obviously incompatible with a noisy, environmentally- destructive airport.
A Real Choice for a Better Future: A Project 99 Citizen Task Force Report on the Non-Aviation Reuses of El Toro is a work in progress that will be published soon. It grows out of Project 99’s Spring 1997 survey on the non-aviation reuses of El Toro, followed by a series of Fall workshops. As 1997 draws to an end, drafts of A Real Choice for a Better Future have been circulated for comment and criticism. The final copy of Project 99’s study will be published and distributed in late-January, 1998. In a partnership arrangement, Project 99’s study will also be submitted to ETRPA. Then ETRPA will use A Real Choice for a Better Future in preparing its own public-agency non-aviation reuse study, currently scheduled for official publication in April, 1998.
If 1997 was “The Turnaround Year,” 1998 promises to be the year when non-aviation reuse plans take shape and begin to receive the serious attention they deserve.
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.
Project ’99 Newsletter Director of Communications, Karen Byers Director of Media, Alan Ellstrand
Project ’99 • PO Box 252 • Irvine CA 92650 • Phone (714) 559-5423