El Toro FAA report to be released today

Paul Clinton

NEWPORT-MESA -- The long and winding road toward the resolution of the

county’s airport tangle could take another dramatic turn today, when a

federal safety report on a potential El Toro airport is released.

The Federal Aviation Administration is scheduled to release the highly

anticipated report at 1:30 p.m., according to a spokeswoman for Rep.

Chris Cox.

The report, delayed several times since March, will analyze how the

airport would operate within the region’s crowded airspace.

For several months, Cox has pushed for a preview of the report, but

has had no success, said Fraser Traverse, spokeswoman for the

congressman.

The report’s continual delays have raised South County ire toward a

majority of Orange County supervisors who have said they would approve

the airport on Oct. 17 with or without the report.

Several supervisors have said they support an airport that could

handle 18 million passengers a year or fewer out of an airport at the

closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

On Monday, Supervisor Jim Silva, who represents Newport-Mesa, said he

doesn’t expect the report to raise his eyebrow. Meetings between the

county and FAA about the airport have been ongoing for five years, Silva

said.

“I don’t think there should be too many surprises,” Silva said. “I

think it’s going to put a lot of things on the table that right now we’re

just guessing at.”

Last week, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House aviation

subcommittee, lobbied for another delay until he could be briefed.

Mica wanted the briefing set for Oct. 17.

On Friday, the FAA announced it would release the report today,

Traverse said. Mica has been offered a briefing at 1 p.m. today.

Federal regulators “are going to tell the world whether the county’s

plan is safe,” Newport Beach Councilman Dennis O’Neil said Monday. “My

hope is they will say it is safe.”

South County leaders, who have for years questioned the safety of the

county’s airport plan, shrugged off the report’s significance.

The report will not address the broader question of air traffic demand

and whether the county needs a second airport.

“It’s the quality-of-life issue the FAA report is not going to

address,” Lake Forest Councilman Peter Herzog said. “This report isn’t

designed to address the focal issues of why there shouldn’t be an airport

at El Toro.”

The report was last scheduled to be released Sept. 12, but was

postponed because of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

Newport Beach Councilwoman Norma Glover said she welcomed the report’s

release at long last, even if it doesn’t fully endorse the county’s plan.

“If they come out with something that’s different than the county’s

plan, that’s the way [the airport] should be designed. It won’t be

somebody in Newport Beach who designs it on the back of an envelope.”

Not everyone was as comfortable with how the county will respond to

the news, whether it is good, bad or ugly.

South County spokeswoman Meg Waters bemoaned what she said was a lack

of sensitivity from county airport planners toward the communities that

would be most affected by the El Toro flight path.

“It’s something else for the county to ignore,” Waters said about the

FAA report. “The county has designed this airport for political purposes,

not because it makes sense from an aviation standpoint.”

* Paul Clinton covers the environment and John Wayne Airport. He may

be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail ato7

paul.clinton@latimes.comf7 .