Airport has down-to-earth plans

Lacking planes, leasing is goal

But those agricultural uses are exactly what officials have been concentrating on while waiting for development at the 18,000-acre Palmdale Regional Airport.

Wednesday, 19 members of the Palmdale Regional Airport Advisory Council got to see some of the other uses being made of the undeveloped land: a tree farm, a sod farm, a humus manufacturer, and a collection of small businesses, including a laboratory.

"We're looking for people. We want businesses and companies to come here," said Jim Bort, the airport's agricultural land developer.

Members of the 20-year-old advisory council were given promotional boxes of pistachios with a "Fly Palmdale" theme to hand out. The idea was to let people know about the local terminal and its surrounding lands, all owned by the Los Angeles Department of Airports and available for lease.

"The problem is that many people in the Valley don't even know that this airport exists," lamented Bort, who narrated a two-hour tour of the vast airport holdings.

Since SkyWest pulled out earlier this year, only one airline - United Express - has been operating flights from the 10,000square-foot Palmdale terminal to Los Angeles International Airport.

Jim Hull, marketing representative for Arroyo Travel and a member of the advisory council, said he routinely pushes clients to try flying out of Palmdale instead of LAX.

"If the cost is reasonable enough, they'll do it," Hull said. "Sometimes the difference in cost is minimal."

Since commercial flights were approved at the airport in 1971, a variety of carriers have come and gone. The problem, say advisory council members, has been high fares and limited destinations.

"Our group has been telling them, `Go East, young man. Go to Las Vegas or Reno, not just LAX,' " Bort said.

Until passenger flight really takes off, the department will continue to focus on leases.

Local onion growers John Calandri and Giba-Wheeler rotate from parcel to parcel, since disease forces growers to find different fields for onions every two years. They presently use 1,500 acres.

Sheep-grazers lease property after heavy winter rains. Palmdale leases land for a 9-hole golf course. "You'd be surprised to see how many people come out to chase that little white ball," Bort said.

The Palmdale Water District maintains six of its wells on airport property. Other wells remain from before the 1970s, when the department began condemning private residences to gather land for an airport.

Many of the private wells have been vandalized. Their reactivation would make the land more valuable for agricultural use.

The airport's 8-acre test plot has been home to flax, walnuts, peaches, apricots, apples, filberts and pistachios. "You name it, we've tried it," Bort said.

Bort is now pinning his hope on chestnuts because they can command a heftier price. This year's hot summer, however, took its toll on some of the young chestnut trees.

The worst problem, he said, is illegal dumpers. Each year he requests new fencing to keep them out. Routinely he finds old tires, concrete chunks and occasionally hazardous materials.

When combined with the acreage of the Plant 42 military installation to the north, the airport embraces an area seven times the size of Los Angeles International Airport.

Many people in the past have had grandiose plans for the property. In 1969, one airport planner estimated Palmdale would become the second largest city in the state as a result of what was formerly called "United States Palmdale Airport."