MAILBAG:

Joe Bell’s column (“Time to speak up about JWA,” Feb. 21), hit the nail on the head.

Ed Selich, the City Council and our citizens better wake up and understand that the settlement agreement is already being renegotiated big time by the airport and the county supervisors.

You don’t sink a half billion dollars into a new terminal and lobby for more seats to be sold (with an elaborate explanation that this is not passengers) without having huge plans for increasing John Wayne International Airport (this is what is called now for those who don’t know).

Who do they think they are fooling?

Forty-five years ago, Fran and Frank Robinson (two people) waged a war against the Irvine Co. to stop its plans for developing what is now our precious Back Bay.

They won, and because of their efforts and 10-year battle, we now have 527 acres known as The Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve.

It is one of the few remaining estuaries in Southern California. It serves as the home to hundreds of varieties of birds (many endangered) and is natural — meaning it was here first and does not need a balloon ride or millions of dollars of development to attract attention.

The backroom plans by the county, and people who run the airport will destroy this Ecological Reserve as well as do great damage to the city of Newport Beach and the surrounding communities that will suffer from the addition of runways, flights and passengers.

In the meetings being held the next several days, weeks, months and years, Alan Murphy and the county board of supervisors will go to great lengths to tell us how no plans are in place to expand the airport.

They will further show us their spiffy reports proving there is no environmental impact from airplanes taking off over our homes and pristine Back Bay.

I am sure they could even fabricate statistics that would show that increases in flights would be good for us all and end global warming.

Enough is enough! No more trying to fit the round peg into the square hole. Airfare and the Airport Working Group are moving ahead full steam and we support all their hard work and diligent efforts.

In addition to those efforts, we are organizing a group of citizens whose only goal will be to stop John Wayne Airport — not just from expanding — but from having commercial flights — period.

It is time that our county board of supervisors begins to look at real solutions for the air travel needs of Orange County. This means finding an alternate airport to John Wayne.

We will not accept any more increases in passengers going out of John Wayne Airport and will be working to shut down the airport to all commercial air traffic.

We will not allow the Back Bay that so many millions of people throughout California need and enjoy to be destroyed by an airport.

Our rallying cry will be found in the spirit and dedication that created the Back Bay: Frank and Fran Robinson. If you are for expansion, raising the caps or anything other than finding an alternative to John Wayne, you are in favor of destroying the Back Bay.

We will not let that happen.

TREB HEINING

Newport Beach