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Boulevard airport site won’t fly, residents say
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
BOULEVARD — Over 125 Back Country and Alpine residents packed the volunteer fire station in Boulevard last Thursday, Feb. 16, to hear technical information offered by San Diego Airport Authority consultants and to ask questions about the progress of the board’s site surveys.
Most residents argued that placement of an international airport in in the tiny town was unrealistic and couldn’t pass the authority’s own placement criteria.
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| Airport authority planners were bombarded with questions from a sometimes hostile crowd of Back Country residents at the town hall meeting held last Thursday. |
Airport authority officials present at the town hall, which was co-hosted by The Alpine Sun, included Angela Shafer-Payne, vice president of strategic planning for the authority, Joe Huy, of Ricondo & Associates, consultants, Tony Skidmore, who is dealing with environmental issues, and Curtis Wright, who is addressing the issue of roads and transportation.
According to Huy, each of the remaining sites must now undergo in-depth analysis in four categories. These four criteria, he said, will ultimately determine which of the sites is going to work for the authority.
“When you look at building an airport, any site needs to pass four criteria in order for the site to be successful and for airlines to operate from that site,” Huy said. “These criteria are accessibility…financial feasibility…market reality…and environmental issues.”
Accessibility
“As a pilot in the Back Country and a resident out here, I just don’t think that an airport is a going to work out here,” said Bob Buckner, of Boulevard at Thursday’s question and answer event.
According to Huy, authority staff are collecting data spanning 20 years of weather for the area. However, as of yet, the studies have not been completed to measure the cold temperatures often reached in the mountains and the powerful gusts of the Santa Ana winds.
“We understand that the winds out here can gust 60, 80, even 100 miles per hour,” Huy said. “If this site were to move forward, we’d need to do these studies.”
According to officials, the orientation of the airport and the runways can be tweaked to handle the blustery Santa Ana winds. They argued that weather is not a major concern at the Boulevard site.
Problems caused by the mountainous terrain of the Boulevard area can be diffused, according to consultants, by creating a slightly larger airport footprint. About 1,200 feet would need to be added to the runways in order to facilitate a clear approach for planes.
Financial feasibility
After the release in January of the cost estimates for a site in Boulevard, concerns have been raised regarding the nearly $17 billion price tag that would come along with the project.
Despite these astronomical numbers, the estimates provided do not take into account all of the potential costs for the new airport site. They don't include financing and transition costs, or the cost of acquiring off-airport land for transportation build-out or utility connections. Also left out of the equation are the environmental processing and mitigation costs, overall operations and maintenance of the site itself.
“This is a range for costs, not specific costs,” Huy said.
Some of authority board members have raised concerns about the high costs and questioned whether the either the Boulevard or Imperial County site would ultimately be feasible for a new airport.
“We need to start thinking about financing and where we’re going to get the money to fund our ultimate choice,” said authority board member William Lynch. “Even if we get help from the federal government or the FAA, we will never get more than half of the amount we’re going to need, and this leaves the airlines to ultimately pick up that slack.
According to consultants, the costs for land acquisition on the actual airport site equal approximately $50 million for Boulevard. Mitigating environmental harm from construction would run from $200 million and $1.6 billion in Boulevard, according to staff.
Market reality
"Would anyone drive there? Or take a high-speed transit system to an airport out at one of these remote sites? That’s a big
question,” said Angela Shafer-Payne. “Although it seems intuitive, that’s something that we need to put together the documentation on. We don’t want to guess at that.”
Shafer-Payne is vice president of strategic planning for the airport authority.
Many staff and board members have raised the concern that an airport in either of the remote sites would not be feasible for the average air traveler. Would it be worth it to airlines to serve such a remote site?
A recent study by the authority showed that an Imperial Valley airport would be 90 minutes away by car; Boulevard would be 75 minutes for most county residents.
Nearly a third of San Diegans are closer to Los Angeles area airports than the Imperial Valley site, the study says. Between 50 and 60 percent of air travelers in San Diego would use an Imperial Valley airport, it says. The numbers are slightly higher — 65 to 75 percent — at the Boulevard site.
The airport advisory committee, a 28-member group that gives advice to the authority, voted in January to end consideration of the two remote sites. The vote that committee member Diane Coombs called for was unplanned and has no binding effect on the full authority board.
There's been a feeling on this advisory committee for some time,” she said, “as this information has been filtering in… if we chose either remote site, the voters would laugh.”
According to Shafer-Payne, an in-depth study is currently being done by the San Diego Association of Governments regarding the likely ridership numbers for a high-speed train to the site. That study is scheduled to be released in March.
Environmental issues
“I go into the city once a week, and it reminds me why I moved out here,” exclaimed one woman, who said her name was not important. “Don’t bring your city out here. Don’t bring your smog.”
Concerns about environmental impacts were chief among topics of interest to attendees, most of whose homes are fed solely by well water.
“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.”
According to authority maps, the water for the Boulevard airport would be pumped up the mountain from the Lower Otay Lakes, to Lake Morena, and then to the site.
A common question among residents in Boulevard is the effects of
the proposed Campo reservation landfill on the plans for an airport. The authority skirted the question in a “frequently asked questions” hand-out provided to attendees.
The hand-out references a small volume transfer station, located at the northeast corner of the potential airport site, which is owned by Ramona Landfill Incorporated. According to residents from the area, the station is little more than a group of dumpsters.
The authority has stated that, due to its proximity and the potential hazards to birds and wildlife, the station would have to be relocated. Staff could not be reached for comment on the large landfill project in the area, which has been on the books for nearly 15 years.
While authority staff are conducting some environmental studies as part of this final stage of analysis, they are not going so far as to tread on the studies for the environmental impact report. That document, and the California Environmental Quality Act process, would be undertaken after the November vote.
Airport vote
Shafer-Payne said the strategic planning committee will complete analysis on the nine remaining sites in April and will then present the findings to the authority board. From there, the board will choose one site, which will ultimately be placed on the November ballot.
“We don’t get to vote on anything in the city,” said Frankie Smith, of Boulevard. “So when it comes down to the vote — no one wants it in their backyard, and they don’t care if it’s in our backyard — we’re going to be completely outvoted.”
The authority board plans to include findings about what sort of financial burden the site could be on local taxpayers.
“The San Diego Taxpayers Association came out with a recommendation that this must be done,” Shafer-Payne said. “We totally agree, and that information will be available for whatever site is chosen.”
“To build a new airport is not something that happens overnight,” she added. “If we are successful in November we expect to take 10 years or so putting together the environmental documentation and going through the litigation that we certainly expect will be involved, before we even put a shovel in the ground.”
She said a new site could expect to open its doors in 15 to 20 years.
“If we get a no vote in November, and the site is not supported by the voters, obviously we’re still going to have capacity issues,” Shafer-Payne said. “At that point the board would have to advise us on how to move forward.”
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