Dredging project is something to dread When...

Dredging project is

something to dread

When they dredged the Santa Ana River in 1997 and left sand along

West Newport, it ruined the surf, because essentially the jetties

don’t do anything anymore. And to put more sand on the beach would

absolutely destroy the surf. There wouldn’t be any more shape, and it

wouldn’t be as hollow, so that definitely has to be stopped.

ROBERT SOMERS

Costa Mesa

On one side of

El Toro airport

I read with great amusement the opening paragraph to your story

about a recent meeting between the Newport Beach City Council

candidates on Balboa Island. You see, seemingly every week your

readers are subjected to a letter from some El Toro airport die-hard

spewing the same old misrepresentations about how no one lives in the

noise zone at El Toro and that no one would be impacted by an airport

there.

So I was just wondering ... since Balboa Island is outside the

“noise zone” for John Wayne Airport, and John Wayne currently has

only a fourth of the number of flights the county and its Newport

Beach buddies were trying to ram down South County’s throats, why did

the City Council candidates struggle “to be heard above the frequent

roar of airplanes overhead?”

Maybe it’s time to send the “noise zone” lie to the trash heap of

failed El Toro rhetoric along with “great tax” and “turnkey airport.”

DOUGLAS K. BLAUL

Trabuco Canyon

And on the airport

debate’s other side

The $19-billion John Wayne Airport may soon be over at El Toro if

the intrepid Airport Working Group gets its way, and that’s where it

should have been to begin with (“Candidates stump at forum,” Sunday).

El Toro is a natural site for an airport, and, no doubt, John Wayne

Airport would have been built there if the U.S. Navy had not built

its airport there first.

Now, El Toro is available for all the people, and we must not lose

this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill our quality-of-life

destiny. Then, the only candidate for Newport Beach City Council that

will be off the table will be one who says El Toro is off the table.

DONALD NYRE

Newport Beach