Irvine City Council Will Sue to Stop Planned Test of Jet Noise at El Toro

Irvine City Council members pledged Tuesday night to sue Orange County to stop a planned test of commercial jet noise at El Toro Marine base next week.

Contending that the county must obtain environmental approvals for the two-day test, the council voted unanimously after a closed-door session to ask a judge to halt it.

“This is important enough environmentally, and there’s a risk to the public’s safety,” Councilman Larry Agran said.

County supervisors, the military and federal regulators have signed off on the test, saying an environmental review is not necessary.

Supervisors turned their attention Tuesday to an interim lease that would give the county a start toward keeping the base active after the Marines leave July 2.

The lease would allow public use of the base’s 18-hole golf course, driving range, clubhouse, horse stables, feed room, tack lockers and rodeo arena; the officer’s club and its parking lot; a large child-development center with playground areas; a recreational-vehicle storage lot; an indoor swimming pool; and office buildings.

“It’s very important for the surrounding community to keep open some of the facilities out there, like the day-care center and swimming pool,” said board Chairman Charles V. Smith, who pushed for uninterrupted use of the base despite ongoing resistance by South County forces to any aviation uses.

Smith said that closing facilities such as the golf course, even if temporarily, would cause maintenance problems and raise county costs.

There was no argument Tuesday from anti-airport Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Thomas W. Wilson over keeping the base’s community facilities open. But both Spitzer and Wilson have opposed the $1.3-million noise tests, set to begin June 4.

At the Irvine council session, Agran had showed aerial photos from a 1965 crash of a military transport jet along Loma Ridge, which is about three miles beyond El Toro’s northern runway.

After the crash, the Marine Corps halted northern departures. Takeoffs since have been to the south, which the county contends would be too noisy over residential areas.

The Air Line Pilots Assn. has protested the county’s proposed northern departures, questioning the safety of takeoffs over hilly terrain and an uphill runway angle affecting the ability of jets to accelerate fully.

County officials, however, said that none of the airlines providing aircraft and pilots for the tests protested the northern departures. The county plans to level the runway as part of airport construction.

The first airliner in the noise test--a Boeing 747-400--is scheduled to arrive at 6 a.m. June 4, descending over Laguna Woods for its landing. Eight commercial jets will take part in a total of 27 landings and 27 takeoffs over two days. Military air-traffic controllers will coordinate the flights.

The county will track noise through 10 monitors installed in areas under the landing and departure paths.

The anti-airport El Toro Reuse Planning Authority, composed of eight South County cities, this week endorsed continued non-airport base activities but vowed to spend $4.5 million to fight aviation uses over the next 12 months.

The interim agreement, which could span up to a year, must be signed by the U.S. Department of Navy. The county and the Navy are still negotiating a master lease for the base, which is required before the county can take over the 4,700-acre property.

In a related development this week, the Navy urged a state commission to let the county begin police patrols on the base after the Marines leave. State approval, considered routine, has been on hold in Sacramento after anti-airport foes argued that full environmental studies must be done first.

The Navy contended in a letter Monday from Jack Wells, counsel for the Navy’s base reuse office in San Diego, that it has the authority to approve interim leases for use of base facilities even without transfer of police authority from the military.

The state Lands Commission will discuss police authority for the base at its June 14 meeting.

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Times correspondent James Meier contributed to this report.