El Toro environmental report reaches cyberspace

Jasmine Lee

The Internet is full of information and now includes the county’s

environmental report on the proposed El Toro airport.

A Web site dedicated to blocking the county’s effort to build a second

airport at the closed El Toro military base this week began offering the

first couple hundred pages of the environmental report.

So far, web surfers can read the first three of the report’s 39 volumes.

More pages are being added from moment to moment, said Leonard Kranser,

an antiairport activist who runs the Web site.

The site, www.eltoroairport.org, is run by South Orange County groups

that are lobbying against the airport, which opponents of the project say

would ruin their communities. They have also criticized the county for

failing to properly inform residents.

“This is going to make it easier for people to submit comments, and we’re

not sure the county wants that,” Kranser said. “The county could have

done it much better on their Web site if they wanted to.”

The public has until Feb. 22 to offer feedback on the report. Kranser

said he just wants to give people easy access to a document that is

highly technical and difficult to digest.

People can access the report by going to the Web site, then clicking on

the “news” link. Then, click on the table of contents and select “EIR.”

El Toro advocates can get a look as well, and they don’t even have to do

the data processing required to get the report online, said David Ellis,

a spokesman for a Newport Beach-based airport lobby group.

“We’re very happy that they are putting the EIR on the Internet,” Ellis

said. “People north of the El Toro ‘Y’ own computers, too.”

Ellis’ organization, the Airport Working Group and other like it have

argued that building an airport at the 4,700-acre former Marine base is

the only way to preventing expansion at the 500-acre John Wayne Airport.

County officials have said the $2.9 billion project is necessary because

of the increasing demand for air travel.

The county’s Web site, www.eltorofacts.org, contains a summary of the

environmental report.

There is no restriction against private groups posting the county’s

environmental study on the Internet, said John Christensen, a county

spokesman. He said, however, if anyone attempts to put the graphics

online, they will likely cause computers to crash.

The report, with more than 10,000 pages, includes about 3,000 graphics --

mostly technical information.

“There is no sense in putting something online if people aren’t going to

be able to read it,” Christensen said. “You need to have the whole

package to understand it in its entirety. That’s why we put a copy in

every city, county and university library.”

Kranser agreed that the graphics would be difficult to post and would

probably be left off the Web site.

“It’s not easy reading, but it’s the best we can do,” Kranser said. “And

it’s better than what the county’s doing.”