Joint-use airport won't work (at MCAS Miramar)

[question everything]

Joint-use airport won't work

By: BRUCE R. BOLAND - Commentary
North County Times
Sunday, November 5, 2006

The language adopted by the San Diego Regional Airport Authority for Proposition A on the Nov. 7 ballot asks the voters in San Diego County to approve obtaining 3,000 of the 23,000 acres at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station for a commercial airport. That airport authority knows, and has always known, that there are not an additional 3,000 usable acres available at Miramar for a civilian airfield. The only usable acreage that has ever been available at Miramar is the acreage that is already occupied by the Marines for their multiuse, war-fighting training and for the housing for the families and single Marines and sailors who live there.

Miramar is not an airfield like Lindbergh ---- it's a base. Intensive training occurs within the confines of its 23,000 acres as the Marines perfect the skills we expect of our 21st century military. Additionally, 6,500 personnel live there, and with the added 1,600 homes planned and approved, the permanent resident population of the base will grow to more than 10,000. If the airport authority wants to force the Marines from Miramar, obtaining a yes vote on this measure by San Diego County voters will go a long way in accomplishing it. Ultimately, that would result in the departure of Marine aviation from Southern California as there is no other location in Southern California for this premier arm of our nation's defense.

(snip)

Miramar presently has about 10,000 annual fixed-wing aircraft departures that go to the west through a closely defined corridor in the airspace over Sorrento Valley. The airport authority's study for the use of Miramar assumes 130,000 departures annually by 2022. Those departures will all be generally to the west and will affect businesses and homes over a great area of some of our most densely populated communities. The airport authority has not defined the community impacts that would be created by a move to Miramar. The ballot language, however, goes on to state that "overall noise impacts will be reduced" if they locate a commercial airport at Miramar, but leaves it to the voters to accept that as a "leap of faith."

The gloom and doom for our economy forecasted by the airport authority if we do not move the airport to Miramar has been disputed by the chairman of the Economics Department at UCSD. Both he and the San Diego County Taxpayers Association have stated that the economic assumptions used as the base for the airport authority study are "fatally flawed." I also see no validity in the airport authority's assumptions. My additional concern with Prop. A is about the land use and noise impacts on the robust industries and communities that surround Sorrento Mesa. If these industries are unable to expand, the impacts on our economy and businesses in San Diego County could be far greater than keeping our regional airport at Lindbergh Field. I recommend that the voters of San Diego County reject the ballot language and vote no on Prop. A.

Bruce R. Boland is a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, a member of the San Diego Military Advisory Council executive committee and a founding member of No on Prop. A.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11/05/perspective/18_52_5611_4_06.txt

[silverweb]

1. I've lived in San Diego for 25 years.

They were having the exact same argument when I moved here and absolutely no progress has been made... except for the many millions spent on the expansion and renovation of the existing airport for the Superbowl here in 1998(?).

I've quit paying attention.

:eyes: