Despite military protests, Airport Authority endorses Miramar for new airport site
By Karen Kucher
UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM
and Jeff Ristine
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
5:44 p.m. June 5, 2006
SAN DIEGO – The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority's board of directors decided Monday to make a joint-use airport at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station its preferred site to replace Lindbergh Field as San Diego's airport.
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The authority, which was formed in 2001, was directed by the state Legislature to find a new regional airport to replace or augment Lindbergh. As envisioned by the authority's consultants, a joint-use airport would cost just under $6 billion and require two new runways that could allow 24-hour civilian air operations to exist side by side with military helicopters and jets. The question is to be put to voters in a November ballot measure.
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Military officials have called military and civilian use of the airport fundamentally incompatible, saying that a civilian airport would take valuable space away from the military airport's safety buffer. The joint-use plan proposes shifting carrier landing practice to the southernmost civilian runway, pushing flights over neighboring communities. It also would expand the boundaries of the footprint around Miramar designed to anticipate where a crash, should one occur, is most likely. Military officials also say they don't know where the combat aircraft loading area, where bombs and missiles are lifted into position, would be relocated. An area tentatively proposed as a new loading area has no safety zone, so ordnance would be pointed toward the base's facilities, aircraft or Interstate 15 before it is loaded.
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The new ballot language reads:
To provide for San Diego's long-term air transportation needs, shall the Airport Authority and government officials work to obtain approximately 3,000 of 23,000 acres at MCAS Miramar by 2020 for a commercial airport, provided necessary traffic and freeway improvements are made, military readiness is maintained without expense to the military for modifying or relocating operations, no local taxes are used on the airport, overall noise impacts are reduced, and necessary Lindbergh Field improvements are completed?
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060605-1634-bn05airport2.html