Biodiversity
Provide ecological habitats and connections to reflect the local natural heritage and to enhance the biodiversity in the region.

Connection to Nature
Bring nature and environmental education opportunities into the greater Orange County area.

Land
The US Navy is performing remediation of the land generally through mechanical means. The Great Park will develop healthy, living soil through natural soil amendments and other means as necessary – perhaps with phytoremediation.

Air Quality
Improve air quality of both internal and external environments.

Water
Protect and conserve both natural and potable water resources.

Well Being
Protect and improves the health and productivity of those who visit and work there.

Energy
Reduce the use of fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouse gases.

Materials
Minimize the impact of construction materials and the generation of waste.
Inclusion: Encourage community participation and civic engagement so that all visitors can obtain an equivalent experience in the park.

Heritage
Instill a sense of place that references the history of the site and the region.

Transit-Oriented
Provide a transit oriented development for the surrounding community with less-polluting transportation choices within and beyond the park

Monitoring
Incorporate ongoing measurement and monitoring of key sustainability metrics.

SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE
The Park will feature sustainable principals within the Master Plan programming. Several green infrastructure components are currently being considered.

• Large rainfall impoundments and groundwater recharge areas within the Agua Chinon and Wildlife Corridor.

• Numerous local infiltration zones for urban runoff to recapture excess flow into the groundwater aquifer.

• Recycling of landscape waste into mulch and compost for reuse on-site.

• Green street designs, such as porous travelways; dark sky lighting; traffic calming; pervious trails and parkways; tree canopy grouping along roads for shade; low reflective and colored pavements; underground irrigation; and structured soil placement to promote aeration/infiltration while confining roots.

This eco-adaptive approach to engineered systems will enable the Park to become more self-sustaining and be a model for others to follow. The Great Park will feature sustainable principles within the Master Plan programming. They include:

Restored Habitat
Ecologically complex restored native habitats are found in three major sections of the park—the Wildlife Corridor, Agua Chinon, and the Canyon. Native plant communities are found in other areas as well, including the Botanic Garden. These habitats will need only modest management.

The Wildlife Corridor, off limits to the general public, is reserved for animal movement from the mountains to the sea. Agua Chinon also links preserves north to south, but it is crisscrossed by paths so that visitors can enjoy this natural area. Among the palm trees and other plantings in the Canyon are a variety of critical habitats, such as vernal pools that support amphibians, specialized plants, and other species that require standing water in the spring.

Renewable Energy Generation
The Great Park is examining the potential of installing over 1 MegaWatts of renewable energy generation on-site through a variety of technologies. Throughout the park, site lighting will have small photovoltaic cells attached to the lamp posts that will charge small batteries to power lights at night. A small hydrogen fuel cell demonstration is also being considered.

The Park is also examining a plan to install over one acre of photovoltaics covering the roof areas of the Living Laboratory hangars and could generate over 400kW at peak output. The Park in also considering 15 solar collectors with mirror dishes with a diameter of over 30 feet and the capacity to generate an additional 500kW at peak output. Over 40 acres of switch grass or other biomass crops could also be grown for use in an anaero.

Water Quality
The Park’s obligation to future generations is to keep water clean for their future use. To this end, the Park will have an array of natural treatment systems (NTS) implemented in a three-stage treatment process. All areas developed with buildings, roads, and other facilities will attempt to integrate Best Management Practices, such as porous pavement, structural infiltration devices, and litter and debris entrapment vaults. This comprises Stage One. Surrounding these facilities will be bio-swales and infiltration/exfiltration media integrated into landscaping zones. This is Stage Two. Finally, after run-off has coursed through these stages, it is captured downstream in treatment wetlands that add vegetative uptake and solar exposure. Monitoring and maintenance will be facilitated by locating the NTS next to roads, trails, and access ways. Locations will be selected in collaboration with the Irvine Ranch Water District to ensure proper operation and maintenance.

These ideas and technologies are generated in the park, but they will have a profound impact far beyond the park’s boundaries.

The Orange County Great Park, which is almost twice the size as Central Park, will be a major metropolitan park and the focal point of redevelopment of the 4,700-acre former Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro. The Great Park will include extensive natural areas and open space in addition to recreational and cultural uses.

Environmental Clean-Up at the Great Park
Navy operations at MCAS El Toro, beginning in World War II and until the base closed in 1999, involved the use of toxic substances including paints and solvents, cleaners, transformer fluids, fuels and lubricants. Waste management practices in its first decades were not as stringent as they were in the last 20 years of base operations, resulting in some parts of the base becoming contaminated.

88% of the 4,738 acres of the base property was never considered to be contaminated. The Navy is required by federal law to clean up the remaining 575 acres and, according to some estimates, the Navy will spend 268 million dollars to complete this task. The most significant contamination is the underground plume of trichloroethylene, which is being mitigated by the Irvine Desalter Project.

Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD), Orange County Water District (OCWD) and the Department of the Navy have designed a joint program to clean up a deep underground plume of trichloroethylene (TCE) pollution coming from the former El Toro Marine Base. TCE is a chemical contained in solvents used to clean airplane engine parts. The pollution resulted from past disposal and waste management practices on the base that were common before the development of stricter environmental regulations in the 1970s.

The Irvine Desalter Project will pump water from the polluted area and use a separate purification plant to remove the TCE. Once cleaned, this water will supplement the community’s recycled water system, not its drinking water.

IRWD’s wells are monitored annually for TCE by the OCWD. In addition, IRWD monitors its aggregate supply of well water more frequently. All of these test results are reported directly to the California Department of Health Services, the agency that regulates drinking water. The drinking water in Irvine meets, or exceeds, all health standards and is safe to drink.

The job of the Manager of Planning and Environmental Services for the Orange County Great Park Corporation it is to work with the Navy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other state and federal agencies to make sure that the cleanup is proceeding according to plan… and it is. The Great Park will be a clean, safe and healthy environment.

Source: Orange County Great Park Corporation