There has been a good deal of coverage and discussion, lately, about the Long Beach Airport (LGB).

In this article, we read that the Council recently held and study session on the current airport noise ordinance (limiting the number of flights, the hours of flights, and the amount of recordable noise each flight can make) and resolved to proceed very carefully before considering making any changes.

In this article, we read that JetBlue Airways has formally requested that the airport and the City of Long Beach begin the process to establish customs facilities for international flights.

In this article, we read that concerns about the potential for international flights and other concerns related to the airport may have significant influence over the outcome of the upcoming 4^th District special election.

Each of these articles, and a number of others, have generated considerable reader commentary. Some commenters are concerned that accommodating international flights could lead to an increase in the number of flights or the amount of noise allowed in neighborhoods around LGB. Other commenters claim alternately that either the local noise ordinance will likely always be in effect to protect airport-impacted neighborhoods or that the airport has been present in Long Beach for many decades and that, knowing this, anyone who has chosen to live in an impacted neighborhood really has no room to now be concerned or to complain, even if flights or noise levels eventually do increase.

Having lived in both the 4^th and 8^th Council Districts in the past, and having worked on the airport property on a daily basis at one time, I feel I have some understanding of the concerns and responses from the various camps on this issue.

In my view, the basis of this ongoing challenge is that LGB, as currently located and configured, was never intended to support the combined level of private and commercial aircraft activity that occurs there. LGB has been among the busiest general aviation airports in the nation for a number of years. Not all of those flights are commercial jets, of course, but the total number of flights in and out of LGB on a daily basis is considerable. LGB is also one of the safest airports around. Whether through extreme skill, dumb luck, or both, there have been very few aircraft crashes over the years either on the airport property or in the surrounding neighborhoods and those which have occurred have fortunately involved smaller aircraft and few casualties.

When little Daugherty Field first came into existence in about 1923, the city’s total population was a few thousand and much of that part of the city was open fields and oil derricks. As the airport grew, the city built up around it until, in present day, with the exception of the Douglas Park project to the near north and a very few small corners elsewhere, Long Beach’s population is pushing a half-million and the city is all but completely built out. Hence the constant pressure from some for LGB to allow more flights and the counter-pressure from others to forbid them.

I propose a solution: Create a new, world-class international airport offshore, somewhere in the 26 miles between the beach and Catalina. This would admittedly be a monstrous public works project that would present many challenges to overcome.

It’s not the first time Long Beach has engaged in major offshore development however. Most everything southwest of Ocean and Alamitos is landfill, including almost the entire Port of Long Beach.

This idea has been considered by some groups previously as this archived LB Post story described about six years ago. An offshore airport facility, however is, indeed, quite possible and, I think, even feasible.

I am admittedly neither a construction engineer nor a legal expert, but I strongly believe that if Long Beach can create a beautiful and vibrant downtown shoreline area and one of the busiest and most successful commercial ports in the world out of little more than open water, it could also create an international airport offshore, perhaps even one combined with several cruise ship terminals, thus making Long Beach the travel and tourism hub of the entire region, perhaps the entire west coast.

Such a proper and full-service international airport could compete strongly with LAX.

Such an offshore airport could remove all jet traffic from over Long Beach’s residential areas and, with Boeing finally wrapping up C-17 operations, leave venerable Daugherty Field to the prop planes and helicopters, and to be used as a world-class aircraft museum.

Such an offshore airport would relieve all the pressure that builds periodically in Long Beach between pro- and anti-expansion factions. It would leave all Long Beach neighborhoods quieter, less polluted, and at far less risk of jetliner disasters such as Cerritos experienced in 1986. 82 people dead and a large part of a neighborhood flattened and smoldering for days. The remains of a smaller prop plane crashing onto the grounds of an elementary school which was blessedly not full of children, because it happened to be a Sunday.

As commercial jetliners (both passenger and cargo) continue to take off and land over Long Beach’s residential neighborhoods, the chances of such a disaster can only increase with time.

I think an offshore airport can definitely work in and for Long Beach, all that is required is people with vision, focus, patience, and determination to make it happen.

What do you think?