Regional airport has bushels of everything but air traffic

Nevertheless, its 17,750 acres aren't lying fallow while Los Angeles Department of Airports officials wait for an economic upswing to boost north county air travel.

Almost everything except air flight seems to come from airport land. Its products include Christmas trees, onions, chestnuts, pistachios and sod.

Users include a fertilizer laboratory, hungry sheep, a Palmdale city-run golf course, a beekeeper, a water-recycling project, even a movie studio - albeit one on the verge of closing.

Airport supervisor Jim Bort, whose official title is agricultural land developer, said the hodgepodge of temporary land uses isn't unusual for a fledgling airport.

"It's sort of a first step," he said. "Originally, LAX was a bean field, and as they grew they just bought more bean fields."

Now, there are no more bean fields for Palmdale Airport's bigger sister to buy. For the past three decades, airport officials and local economic development boosters have anticipated business from crowded LAX overflowing into Palmdale.

In the meantime, one airline, United Express, connects Palmdale and LAX with shuttle flights. A second shuttle, SkyWest-Delta, left the airport in February 1994, citing poor business.

The airport even closed from 1985 to 1990 due to lack of an airline.

"The strange thing is, back in 1970, we had more people using the facility than we do now," Bort said.

So for now, Los Angeles city's airport department is content to lease runway space at Air Force Plant 42 rather than build a runway for the airport.

And local farmers annually lease empty airport land for between $25 to $60 an acre. The airport's holdings stretch from 15th to 105th streets east, with irregular north-south boundaries that touch Avenue M, Avenue P-12 and even Palmdale Boulevard.

Parts of the B-2 stealth bomber were built in a large, unornamented building at 30th Street East and Avenue P. For the past six months, the building has been leased by Stealth Studios for what the tenant called an unsuccessful attempt to lure movie and television business to the Valley.

Although the large, soundproof building was a rare and useful find, site scouts perceived it as too far away from Hollywood, Operations Manager Brad Hinkle said. Now, an aerospace manufacturer is buying the building.

"We gave it a shot for six months, and it's just that the timing's not right," Hinkle said.

Even with the leases, the airport doesn't come close to paying for itself, with an operational budget of $3.47 million offset by an expected $1 million in revenues.

However, "it's better to put this to some use than to no use at all, especially when when we can produce food and fiber," Bort said.

One popular airport crop is onions; about 1,500 acres were planted there this year by various local growers.

Bort said onion growers like the airport because they can switch fields every two years, which they believe is necessary to avoid a root rot that can plague the crop.

The airport itself is experimenting with 30 acres of pistachios and 60 acres of chestnuts. So far, there haven't been enough nuts to sell; what is grown is given to airport guests as promotional gifts.

"This is to encourage and show people what can be done" in the Antelope Valley, Bort said. "Most people think chestnuts don't even exist anymore. They think it is a plant that was lost like the dinosaurs."

Retired forester Tony Baal runs a Christmas tree farm at Avenue N and 50th Street East, taking advantage of the reclaimed water available there. Baal also grows eucalyptus trees for firewood and gourds for crafts.

"I haven't shut my water off since March 15. It's going day and night," said Baal in explaining why the cheaper water is a necessity.

The airport land is unique in Palmdale because it receives partially recycled water from the Los Angeles County Sanitation Department's nearby water-treatment plant. An underground pipeline daily brings about 8.5 million gallons of reclaimed water to the airport. Some is used by growers, but most is expelled onto vacant desert land to seep down and recharge the water table.

With the reclaimed water, farmers may grow crops that aren't for human consumption, or produce food that doesn't touch the ground, such as the nut trees.

Sheep from the Triple E Ranch graze at a site at 50th Street East. "You'd be amazed - they eat dead tumbleweeds, even some of the sage brushes," Bort said.

While farming may not bring the airport a lot of money, the farmers are useful, he said. "They come in and clean up the trash, remove the fences, remove vegetation, level the soil when they plant the crop, also fertilize. They've done a very good job of improving the soil for us."