Problems Abound in Airport Sites Suggested in 2-Year Coalition Study

SANTA ANA —  Significant obstacles loom in the path of all four regional airport sites proposed by a citizens’ panel that has spent more than two years researching the issue, according to the group’s own final report.

The report, which despite years of study and $750,000 in research expenses declines to suggest a single site, narrows the field to four possibilities: Potrero los Pinos, northeast of San Juan Capistrano; South Camp Pendleton near Oceanside; Cristianitos Canyon near San Clemente, and March Air Force Base in Riverside County.

“There are some problems with all of the sites, that’s certainly true,” said Barbara Lichman, a member of the Airport Site Coalition Board. “Any large public works project will have a lot of those problems, but I think we have broadened the scope of possibilities.”

On Tuesday, the coalition will present the report, accompanied by an “action plan” and executive summary, to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Those documents will sketch out an array of options for a new regional airport, but observers agree that they leave many hurdles in the way of an airport’s construction.

The issues and problems involve environmental concerns, cost, location and governmental opposition, among other things.

Partly because of the complexity of the issues, the panel has drafted two separate sets of reports--one by the Airport Site Consensus Team and a second by the Airport Site Coalition Board. While the first report ranks the four sites in order of preference, the second document proposes an action plan that qualifies the ranking set out in the first.

“The way this material is going to be presented to the Board of Supervisors is not going to suggest that these sites be ranked,” said Leland Oliver, president of the coalition. “The ranking is really not relevant.”

Both the report and the action plan will be submitted to the supervisors for the first time Tuesday morning, but even before receiving them some supervisors have expressed reservations. Supervisors Don R. Roth and Thomas F. Riley both said this week that they oppose building a new airport anywhere in Orange County.

Roth also doubted whether the Marines or Air Force would ever agree to plans for commercial airports on their bases, saying there wasn’t a “snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.” Roth has endorsed George Air Force Base, which is scheduled for closure in 1992, as the best site for a new airport.

That base is not considered one of the four finalists in the site coalition’s work.

Potrero los Pinos ranked highest in the consensus group’s report, but it would cost $6.34 billion to develop that site, and the report warns that there is “no readily apparent possibility of reducing the cost.” Environmental impact would also be severe, the report acknowledges.

Noting that access to a Potrero airport would also be extremely limited, the report recommends construction of a 10-mile-long monorail paralleling Ortega Highway.

The report also acknowledges that the other south county site, Cristianitos Canyon, poses traffic congestion problems in and around San Clemente. At $1.82 billion, it would be notably cheaper than the other sites, but it is opposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff because it would be within a few miles of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Camp Pendleton suffers from “longstanding and vehement opposition by the Marine Corps” and “significant environmental impacts,” the report notes. At $6.51 billion, that site is also the most expensive and its construction could require major work to the San Diego Freeway and the railroad track that runs along side it as it passes through Pendleton.

The final site discussed in the report, March Air Force Base, presents fewer points of opposition, but they, too, are significant. An airport there would cost $3.28 billion, but it would be located far inland, making access to it from Orange County difficult. The report notes that it would have the “largest potential noise impacts of any of the four finalist sites.”

Still, board members say their work will leave the county much closer to an airport site than it was when the panel began its task.

“We’ve found sites that no one had ever looked at before,” Lichman said. “These are sites that are close to home but still are without any serious impacts on the population.”