Pilots back another El Toro option

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT BEACH -- A pilots group that once criticized an alternative

runway plan for the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station has shifted

its stance.

The Air Line Pilots Assn. announced the change in an e-mail letter to

Charles Griffin, the Newport Beach resident and author of the alternative

plan, which would realign the east-west runway so it would form an

inverted V pattern with the north-south runway.

Griffin and other members of The New Millennium Group, a political

action committee, have said they will begin circulating a petition in the

next few weeks that, if it qualifies, would put the plan, known as the

Wildlands Ranch Alternative, to a public vote in March.

That would coincide with the South County measure that, if approved,

would change zoning at the base to pave the way for a central park.

In the e-mail Wednesday, Capt. Jon Russell, the western regional

safety chairman of the association, said his group “urges the FAA to

review the proposal set forth in The New Millennium Group proposal . . .

for operations on Runway 16.”

The comment reversed the group’s earlier contention that the V-plan

has “serious and specific limitations,” a comment in Russell’s July 25

letter to Orange County.

The county analyzed the V-plan in its environmental review of the

airport system master plan, which contemplates a 28.8-million annual

passenger airport at the base.

The Federal Aviation Administration has refused to review the V-plan

because it has not been endorsed by county airport planners.

The runways at the air base are now aligned in a crossed-bar pattern.

Critics have picked out safety concerns of the county’s airport plan,

which would leave the runways in their present layout. Griffin said he

introduced the plan so a safer airport could be built.

New Millennium members giddily embraced Russell’s letter. Russell

Niewiarowski has worked with Griffin to refine the plan since it was

first included in the county’s December 1999 environmental report.

“This is the first time that they have ever endorsed looking at

something else other than their own plan,” said Niewiarowski, a Santa Ana

Heights resident. “It’s the beginning of a new direction.”

To secure Niewiarowski’s support, Griffin modified several aspects of

the V-shaped runway alignment.

Griffin lowered the slope of the north-south runway, which arriving

planes would theoretically use in a southerly descent. Griffin also

proposed extending the runway.

Meg Waters, a spokeswoman for the South County cities fighting an

airport at El Toro, said she supported consideration of Griffin’s plan.

“I think they should look at it,” Waters said. “I don’t have any

problem.”

City officials pushing for an El Toro airport have said the county

should continue ignoring Griffin’s plan because it would delay the

airport plan long enough to rot on the vine.