El Toro isn’t the only option for an international airport

Charles H. Loos

My friend and your columnist Joseph N. Bell (The Bell Curve, “A

few things to ask before burying El Toro,” July 25) is dead right

that there should be an accounting of the $3.7 million the city of

Newport Beach spent on the most recent airport battle.

Perhaps an even larger accounting is called for. Between the

political battle and the planning of an airport at El Toro carried

out by county government, we read that expenditures of public money

probably reached the $80-million to $100-million range.

That seems like serious money to me. It also appears to me to be a

serious waste of taxpayer dollars when I think about what that money

could have accomplished.

The money could have been better spent on improving the way we

take care of our fellow Orange Countians who need help for one reason

or another, or it could have been spent on infrastructure matters

such as filling potholes and upgrading sewer systems. But I suppose

none of these things are as politically flashy as an airport.

Lately, we’ve learned Orange County leads Southern California,

indeed the entire nation, in beach closures and warnings because of

polluted waters. Does that say something about our sewage and runoff

systems and the respect our politicians have for the people who want

to enjoy our county’s greatest natural assets?

For decades, Orange Countians have been fighting

not-in-my-backyard battles over proposed locations for a new airport.

The stacks of paperwork generated by all the studies of possible

airport sites in Orange County could be recycled and used to print

several editions of the Daily Pilot.

And there still is no new airport. Could it be we need to look

outside the county?

It was first suggested in the 1970s that because both Orange and

San Diego counties needed new civilian airports, the two counties

should join hands and work toward getting an international airport

built at Camp Pendleton, along with high-speed ground transportation

systems linking the airport to population centers.

The thinking was that no development unrelated to the airport

would be allowed, thus eliminating safety concerns and noise and

pollution complaints from residents or business establishments near

the Pendleton facility. Like LAX, takeoffs would be over the ocean.

Further, the Marines would be there to guard the airport, if

necessary, and would be able to use it in times of national

emergency.

Creative thinking for the long term?

Actually, almost a no-brainer, particularly if California’s

population continues to grow as expected.

Would it be easy? No, lots of political land mines need to be

cleared. Expensive? You bet, although it would be less wasteful than

fighting not-in-my-backyard battles for another 30 years. And the

Marines? In the 1970s, they said it would never happen. They’re still

saying that. But years ago, they were saying Marine Corps Air Station

El Toro would never close.

The Camp Pendleton idea didn’t fly in the ‘70s, why would it now?

Nobody stepped forward to champion the idea then, and it wasn’t

explored very seriously. But times change and options evaporate.

Maybe an international airport at Pendleton is an idea whose time has

come.

It would take political leadership, of course. Leaders with some

capacity for political daring. If such a thing can be expected of our

politicians.

* CHARLES H. LOOS is a Newport Beach resident, and a retired

journalist and a former managing editor of the Daily Pilot.