MAILBAG:

It is impossible to endure the noise from never-ending leaf blowers in Newport Beach. Leaf blowing noise interferes with our residents’ sleeping, working, performing complex tasks and communicating while at the same time creating tremendous stress. The aggravation continues well after the leaf blowing noise subsides.

According to the California Air Resources Board, leaf blowers cost our state billions of dollars a year. Gardeners who carry and use leaf blowers cost our medical system tens of thousands of dollars a year per person in work-related hearing loss leading to deafness.

What’s more, by carrying heavy high-speed whirring leaf blowing machines on their backs, gardeners provoke their bodies into having heart attacks. In turn, our local hospitals’ emergency rooms risk bankruptcy from the ensuing cardiac treatment costs.

Newport Beach homeowners, residents, visitors, medical staffers and city personnel are all affected since leaf blowers stir-up our air into small windstorms, spreading pollutants that irritate everyone’s eyes and throats. Salmonella poisoning, in particular, and STAPH infections, in general, are caused by contact with dog fecal matter blown into Newport Beach air by the many leaf blowers here. Restaurants, grocery markets and every residential home’s kitchen can become a victim of a leaf blower. Tons of animal fecal matter are blown into our fresh air by leaf blowers.

Newport Beach fire personnel, police officers, pilots, doctors, nurses, 24-hour drugstore employees (including pharmacists) and emergency care workers all experience weakened immune systems whenever their sleeping time during daylight hours is reduced whenever leaf blowers are present.

CAROLE WADE

Newport Beach

Here’s an idea: Let JWA die on the vine

Local activists’ eloquent pleas for a regional solution to air traffic demand wisely point out that John Wayne Airport already is the second largest provider of service in the Los Angeles area behind LAX, (“Better transportation solution to airport woes,” Jan. 21.)

They point out that 30% of users are vacationers, and if better surface transportation were available, people could land at some airport out in the sticks and ride the train to their destinations.

Ontario Airport ranks high on the list of airports out in the sticks that does not attract customers, because it does not have a train connecting the airport to tourist destinations of Anaheim and Newport Beach. As long as there is LAX or JWA, passengers will continue to use them, with, or without, a train.

Los Angeles opened Ontario as a reliever airport when LAX is fogged in.

It was not intended to be a destination airport. Similarly, I have been denied landing at San Diego’s Lindbergh Field and had to land at Ontario. Of course we all hated it because we wanted to land in San Diego.

By contrast to airports out in the sticks, Los Angeles has its eye on the closed El Toro International Airport, which is in an area with a proven track record for attracting passengers. I believe a regional solution to our air transportation problem is to open El Toro International Airport, let Los Angeles run it, and let dinky John Wayne Airport die on the vine.

DONALD NYRE

Newport Beach