Published weekly

January 12, 2006

Imperial voters push hard to host San Diego airport

By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
     SAN DIEGO — As the April deadline for the San Diego Regional Airport Authority to pick a spot for a new international airport draws closer, Imperial county officials are pushing harder for the desert site.
A delegation of Imperial County elected officials and other supporters urged an airport board last week to consider the advantages of a remote site served by maglev, high-speed trains — an idea that has drawn only minimal support.
     “The remote sites are not being very well-received,” said San Diego Airport Authority president Thella Bowens. “We’re hearing a lot of people say that these sites are just too far away, and they probably wouldn’t use them.”
     Although there is little apparent public support for an airport in Imperial County, this option has been strongly supported by one influential backer. U.S. Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego), whose district includes all of agriculture-dominated Imperial County, has strongly supported choosing an Imperial County site.
     Filner's effort got nearly $1 million through a Congressional transportation bill to study the maglev line between San Diego and Imperial, and the results of that study will go before the authority in February or March when it prepares to cut down its remaining site list.
     In November, Imperial County voters overwhelmingly approved an advisory measure that asked if they supported the airport. Nearly 80 percent, 15,559 voters, said they would, with only 4,061 opposed.
     “Of course there was a lot of support for the airport in this area,” said Imperial County Supervisor Joe Maruca of the vote. “An airport would be huge for the economic development of this area.”
     “We have a lot of land,” said Orlando Foote, chairman of the Imperial County Airport Advisory Commission. “And we have an absence of a NIMBY (not in my back yard) attitude out here.”
     “No one in San Diego County wants a new airport,” he said. “They want to leave Lindbergh where it is. But if there is a true desire for a real international airport, instead of a single-runway airport like Lindbergh that can't handle anything larger than a Boeing 757 because of the runway length, we are the answer.”
     During a presentation to the authority's nine-member board, Foote cited available land, ready supply of energy and water and the results of a recent advisory ballot on the issue as why Imperial is the solution to the airport search.
     “We are willing to share the revenues and accept the environmental burden,” he said. “We would divide the revenue stream through a cross-jurisdictional governing authority or a joint powers authority.”
Foote also stressed the creation of a transportation corridor linking San Diego with points east and the potential for ties to Mexico through Mexicali, a city of more than 1 million about 25 miles from where Imperial County officials suggest the airport could be built.
     A recent suggestion that the Imperial site would interfere with established Navy flight patterns between bases in San Diego and bombing ranges in Imperial isn't accurate, Foote said. He introduced a memo from Filner that asked the Defense Department whether locating an airport in Imperial would conflict with established airspace patterns.
     The response that Filner got from a Navy official was that it does not have sufficient information to make any comment.
     The site currently under review at the authority is about 100 miles east of central San Diego, south of Interstate 8 and just east of the current boundary for farming. Foote said the site — selected because it previously had been considered for air cargo operations — is “completely inappropriate” because of poor access and the fragile environment of the area called Pinto Wash.
     “Perhaps an area that has been farmed would be a much better option,” Foote said.
Residents in San Diego County have not been strong supporters of an Imperial airport site, whether or not it includes a high-speed rail line.
     Authority consultants have said it's unlikely that even a high-speed train would make travel to the desert appealing. In the best case, authority officials expect only 10 to 15 percent of air travelers would use the rail. The project could also cost upwards of $140 million per mile to build.
     Expansion of Lindbergh remains a possibility but would face major obstacles, starting with vehement opposition from nearby Point Loma residents. Lindbergh is bordered by Interstate 5, the bay and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, creating a host of problems with the idea of adding a second runway. The expansion would not solve the problem of not being allowed to have any overnight departures or arrivals, a restriction on Lindbergh because of the nearby residential neighborhoods.
     After agreeing not to talk about any military sites, despite the state legislation that created the authority, calling for it to consider military airfields, three county bases are now front and center in the airport search.
     Oceanside's Camp Pendleton, North Island Naval Air Station just west of Lindbergh, and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in northeastern San Diego are now being studied for civilian and shared civilian-military airports.
     Authority board member Mary Sessom said that while the bases must be studied, she doesn't believe a military site is the solution. “I'm not convinced that we can ever pry a base site away from the military,” Sessom said.
     During the next three months, authority staffers and consultants plan to hold a series of meetings with Navy and Marine Corps officials to analyze whether any base can become a shared airfield. That process is expected to include a study of whether a new airport can be built in the eastern section of Miramar Marine Corps Air Base.
     That study is expected to be complete by late March, about the same time the study of the high-speed rail connections to Campo and Imperial County will be completed.
     In early April, the authority board will take all of that information, as well as the renewed look at a possible supplemental site in North County, when it further winnows its site list and arrives at a recommendation to offer voters.
     A new airport would be built through a combination of federal grants and authority-issued bonds repaid through revenues generated by leases with airlines and airport concessionaires. The authority has said the only local tax dollars that would be required would be those needed to pay for highway improvements.

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