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Residents offer airport authority some hard facts
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — Nearly 100 Alpine and Back Country residents packed the Alpine Community Center last Thursday, Nov. 17, to question the San Diego Regional Airport Authority about its studies of over 3,000 acres for an international airport. The meeting was one in a series conducted by the authority so get public input and provide information about the airport site search.
Airport authority staff said the meeting boasted the second largest attendance of its prior forums.
Co-hosted by The Alpine Sun, the meeting allowed residents to pose questions of airport authority board President and CEO Thella Bowens and board member and Lemon Grove Mayor Mary Sessom. Many also voiced concerns which were mainly focused on the proposed Campo/Boulevard site. Alpine Sun columnist and Alpine Planning Group member Joe Forlenza served as moderator.
Many residents were concerned that a similar town hall event has not been conducted in the Back Country area that is being discussed.
Bowens said the airport authority staff will hold a meeting in the Boulevard area in the future. However, Sessom added that it would most likely not take place until after the new year.
"We will come to Boulevard to meet with citizens out there," Bowens said. "It’s not scheduled yet, but we will be setting a schedule to come to Boulevard."
Residents spoke to impacts on air quality, groundwater degradation and depletion, massive traffic influx, including possible five-lane expansion through Alpine, and the untold costs of the projects that would be required to support it.
"If this airport was to become a reality in the Boulevard area, it’s going to impact the entire Back Country, it’s going to take in towns like Tecate, it’s gong to take in Pine Valley, it’s going to take in Campo, Boulevard, even Descanso," said Pine Valley Sponsor Group member Bob Ames.
"Regardless of how you build it, how careful you are, and how you mitigate it, it’s going to have disastrous impacts on the surrounding area," said John Long of Campo.
"None of the sites are perfect… every single one of them has some kind of a major challenge associated with it," Bowens said. "The board’s challenge is going to be to look at each one of the sites and what the challenges are, and balance those challenges against each other and decide which ones are most mitigatable, which ones can they most live with, and which ones are most apt to be able to be put into operation."
The effects on groundwater were mentioned by many.
"With sewage treatment and disposal on-site, how do you propose to deal with the groundwater contamination that will result," asked Boulevard resident and sponsor group chair Donna Tisdale. "We have concerns with the fuel at the airport site and the sewage that’s going to be introduced — because that’s a lot of flushing."
"As far as utilities are concerned out there, there’s no sewers and there are no water supplies other than wells and septics," said Boulevard resident Barry Contos. "If someone is going to build an airport out there, I really want to get some feedback about how they’re going to manage it."
"It doesn’t matter if it’s Campo, or expanding Lindbergh Field, or going to one of the military bases — infrastructure, be it water or sewer are problematic because an airport the size of the footprint we’re using is going to need substantially more infrastructure of that nature, than probably exist there today," Bowens said. "Somewhere like Campo or Imperial, it becomes more problematic because the access isn’t there already."
Bowens said this issue is one that is being analyzed in the current phase of the process for civilian sites. Studies will be looking at the necessary infrastructure at the site and what it would cost to build it.
According to staff calculations, the airport would only consume 7,000 gallons of water per day, a number, which was ridiculed and questioned by residents.
"People out here in the Back Country know what a gallon of water is," said Campo resident Bill Slaff. "I’ve got a 7,500 gallon tank... I dump half of it in one day of irrigation. It’s probably more like 700,000 gallons per day and I think you guys need to get your facts straight on these things, because that is very important in the area where all we’ve got are these holes in the ground."
Sessom said the board will work with various agencies to see whether utility connections will be feasible. This information will be brought before to board on Dec. 5.
The impact of transportation infrastructure was also a hot topic at the town hall meeting.
"If the airport goes to Campo, or to the desert
site...SANDAG will be tasked with how to get folks to these distant sites," Sessom said. "They are distant sites, and in fact may not survive on the list because of their distance, but we’re still studying that."
"I find it pretty amusing to think about how people are going to be transported on I-8 through the border check, from the airport to San Diego," Contos said. "I would think that once anybody has experienced that, they would never fly to San Diego again."
According to Sessom, the authority would have to deal with the border patrol to address issues of immigration at the I-8 border check.
"I really can’t see a mag-lev train stopping and going through the checkpoint," Sessom said. "I think some security would have to be done at the beginning point."
Sessom said that SANDAG and the airport authority are currently undertaking an intensive study of a
magnetic levitation train to see if it could be a feasible way to get travelers from the Miramar area to a distant airport.
Then, there was wind: "Sometimes, the winds can be gusting up to 80 or 100 miles per hour," Barry Contos said. "And sometimes it can be 50 to 60 miles per hour constant."
"We are very much aware that there is weather to be concerned with in the Campo area, and that too is part of the analysis that the consultants look at," Bowens said. "All of these things help to determine whether or not it becomes a feasible site if you take into account all of the weather factors, as well as cost and other issues."
"I can’t tell you what the answer is today, but we are looking into it," Bowens said. She added that this info will also come before the board at
its Dec. 5 meeting.
Acquisition of land in the area of a new site was a bone of contention
among Boulevard residents, many of whom raised the
specter of eminent domain condemnation on thousands of acres.
"For people whose property is already under the footprint, their land will be acquired," said a Boulevard woman. "But what about those of us who’ve retired up there and our land is just outside of that? We’ll have to endure the noise, the pollution. No one will want to buy our property, you won’t buy our property, and my retirement is going to be really screwed up."
"We own no property around any of these airport sites except for what we own at Lindbergh Field," Bowens said. "If there were acquisitions that need to be made, then we would have to find the mechanism for acquiring those properties from whoever owns them, whether it’s the military or a private property owner."
Bowens said that part of the current analysis is the impact on local residents and the number of properties effected.
"Whichever site is ultimately selected to be the site is going to go through an entire environmental impact review process," Bowens said.
"The environmental impact process will be another bite at the apple for residents, so to speak," Sessom said.
The cost of the project is also a major concern to residents as many question who will eventually pay for the new airport.
Bowens said that the primary source of funding for the building of a new site are airport revenue bonds from the FAA. All infrastructure that is directly and solely associated with the airport is covered by these funds. However, if the construction were for joint-use with communities in the area, or for future construction, the cost could be passed on the local taxpayers.
According to staff, the board received a $7.8 million grant to pay for the search for a new airport site. Of that, the authority has already spent about $4.5 million, with 90 percent of that amount coming from a federal aviation grant.
"People need to be made aware of the
exorbitant infrastructure costs that are going to be associated with this project," Tisdale said. "And those costs need to be before the voters before they vote on this site."
Sessom said that, at the time of the vote, "We might have huge ballparks for costs to present to voters. But those cost numbers could change down the road in the 15 years it takes...to be built."
"No matter how we cut it, there’s just going to be billions and billions and billions of dollars cost to local residents," said Alpine resident George Barnett.
Neville Connor, also of Alpine, presented his analysis of lost productivity costs that could result from the hours businesspeople and workers would spend getting to a distant airport.
The November 2006 vote is advisory in nature, but the authority board has vowed to honor the decision made by the voters.
Bowens said the vote would be purely for San Diego county
residents, even if the ballot proposal was for the Imperial
Valley site.
"If the Campo site is ultimately chosen, then it’s going to be up to all of you to convince the rest of the county that this really is not a good idea," Sessom said.
This statement raised more concerns among meeting participants.
"If it comes to the vote, the people of Point Loma can outvote the people in the Back Country two-to-one, so we haven’t got a chance," Ames said. "If it goes on the ballot, it’s a done deal."
According to recent voter counts, there are only 335 registered voters in the Boulevard area.
Bowens said that, if the county-wide ballot returns a ‘No’ vote in November 2006, the authority will stick with Lindbergh Field.
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Christy Scott
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