Bases now part of new airport search
By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer | ∞
SAN DIEGO ---- Against its will, the military was drafted Monday to join the search for the location of the county's next commercial airport.
Despite protests from base officials, Camp Pendleton, Miramar Marine Corps Air Station and North Island Naval Air Station will be examined to see if their air fields could be shared with commercial passenger and cargo aircraft or become home to a new airport.
The decision to study the bases came Monday afternoon when the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority ended months of speculation about how it would treat military facilities in its search for a new airport site. The nine-member board voted unanimously to spend as much as $5 million to study the bases' potential for what is officially being termed "shared or joint use."
"We owe it to the public to study the bases," board member Paul Peterson said.
Downtown San Diego's Lindbergh Field is the nation's busiest single-runway airport, forecast to be unable to handle expected increases in airline passenger and cargo demand by about the year 2020, and the authority has been charged with expanding it or finding a new airport location.
The board's vote came after base officials spent more than an hour outlining why they do not believe the bases are appropriate for anything other than military purposes. The bases had been off limits for authority consideration until the recent round of nationwide base closures, which had no major consequences for any local facilities, was completed.
Prior to voting, several board members pointed out state legislation that created the authority and ceded control of the airport from the Unified Port of San Diego. That law included a directive to study military and civilian sites for a new regional airport.
Board member Paul Nieto said that despite serious doubts over whether any base could in fact be part of the region's long-term civilian air needs, the studies are necessary.
Board member Bill Lynch said the military brass needs to be asked "how much they are willing to compromise."
Any such compromise won't come easy.
Miramar Col. Greg Goodman, Pendleton community liaison Larry Reynolds and Cmdr. Mike Phillips from North Island Naval Air Station each made presentations arguing against any consideration of their bases.
"Encroachment on any (military) facilities is an encroachment on all our facilities," Phillips told the nine-member authority board.
Goodman said converting Miramar to a civilian airport is out of the question. Sharing the base with civilian passenger and cargo aircraft or constructing a second air field on the base's eastern section would lead to the loss of housing, create serious airspace issues and threaten base security, he said.
Miramar is considered by many the most logical new airport site because of its central county location, easy freeway access and more than 23,000 acres of land.
Reynolds told the board and an overflow audience of more than 70 people at the airport's Commuter Terminal that Camp Pendleton was simply no place for a commercial airport or a place where civilian and military jets can mix.
"Absolutely, positively not doable at Camp Pendleton," Reynolds began.
He said the 200-square-mile base outside of Oceanside needs all of its land for training and all of its airspace for the missile, mortar and artillery practice as well as the fixed-wing aircraft and 180 helicopters that use Pendleton.
The trio of military representatives also said that despite numerous examples of shared-use airports around the country, none come close to the air operations each base conducts annually and the more than 215,000 takeoffs and landings at Lindbergh.
North County's two representatives on the airport board, Vista Mayor Morris Vance and Oceanside's Robert Maxwell, said that while they do not believe Pendleton will ultimately be a site of shared use, it too has to be studied.
"The mandate is there and we have to do it," Vance said.
Working from an original list of 32 possible new airport sites, the authority has the base sites as well as three civilian locations still on its candidate list. The civilian sites are Imperial County just east of the San Diego County line along Interstate 8, Campo in the southeastern portion of the county and the possible but extremely challenging expansion of Lindbergh.
Nominally on the list are Borrego Springs, which is not getting any further study, and March Air Reserve Base in Southwest Riverside County, which also will not get any further study.
At the urging of authority board member Mary Sessom, the list of civilian sites could be augmented next week with the reconsideration of a site east of Escondido known as Rancho Guejito. The site was considered in 2002 but dropped.
Sessom wants Rancho Guejito or some other North County site given renewed consideration as a possible "supplement" to Lindbergh.
The authority has set an April deadline to come up with a recommendation for a new airport. Its decision will go before county voters next November as an advisory issue.
If the a new airport is built, it would be funded by federal grants and airport revenues with no local tax dollars dedicated to its construction.
North County Times Editor Kent Davy will host the next town hall for the general public on the airport site selection, a session set for 6-8 p.m. Jan. 19 at Vista City Hall.
Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.
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Jim J wrote on Dec 6, 2005 7:13 PM:I have a hard time believing the Airport Authority has the authority to seriously study federal properties for inclusion in its airport plans and then believe they can exert their will on the Pentagon without congressional support. That being said, Miramar makes a very viable case for a shared use facility. Having served four years at a shared military base in the 80s, it is a workable compromise that does not need to take military facilities or compromise security. We had one side of the runway, the jetport had the other side. The military FAA tower and RAPCON controlled both operations. A new airport is needed and land space is at a premium. Short of the desert, where else is San Diego County going to go for a major airport?
Craig wrote on Dec 8, 2005 7:08 AM:We spend millions on studies that take years to complete based on the same bad premise(s). I would like to see the amount of cargo flights, current and predicted future, versus the passenger flights, current and predicted future. Then taking that data determine if you really need a whole new airport or if you can use Lindbergh for passenger flights and then maybe ramp up Brown Field (or for cargo only, possible joint usage of a base flight line). Instead of always looking for something "new", we need to determine other variances that will both be cost effective as well as realistic.
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