Anchorage is blessed with a booming airport and a beloved Coastal Trail. Sometime soon, as traffic continues to grow at an airport with little geographical growing room, one will have to yield to the other.

Officials at the Stevens International Airport want to expand capacity with a new north-south runway, but each of their four proposed designs would reroute the 11-mile Coastal Trail.

In two of the designs, airport planners propose turning water into land by filling in part of Cook Inlet. They would loop a section of the Coastal Trail around a man-made spit that could jut nearly a mile into the Inlet.

A hint of the potential turbulence such plans may trigger played out at a recent community council meeting.

After listening to a presentation by airport planners, two Turnagain residents exchanged words that sum up what's at stake.

"More planes equals more money. That's a good thing," a man said.

"My quality of life is worth something too," a woman retorted.

Airport officials point to facts and forecasts that show the airport is one of the city's biggest sources of jobs and that cargo traffic is expanding at such a high rate that hourlong flight delays could be a daily occurrence by 2017.

Advocates of trails and wildlife worry growth will come at the expense of the popular Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge and the 191-acre Point Woronzof Park.

"It's a careful balance," Mayor Mark Begich said. "The airport has to continue to grow to meet the traffic demand, the cargo demand, the business demand. But we want to make sure it's done in a way so it benefits the quality of life, not harms it."

A LOT OF JOBS

Fans of the airport -- an economic engine that doesn't depend on unsustainable natural resources -- are abundant.

Even though all of the runway options go across land owned by Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility, utility manager Mark Premo is fine with that as long as any deal meets AWWU's needs too.

"Our interest is to work with the airport and make sure this project moves forward," he said. "I don't think anyone wants to deter the infrastructure of the airport."

Thanks to Anchorage's position between Asia and the Lower 48, it was the third busiest cargo airport in the world in 2006, behind Memphis and Hong Kong, according to the Airport Council International. The metric tonnage of cargo passing through Anchorage grew 5.9 percent from 2005 to 2006, and similar growth is projected in the coming years.

That means lots of jobs. Between cargo and passenger traffic, one out of eight jobs in the city are connected to airport-related activity, according to a 2007 study by UAA's Institute of Social and Economic Research.

"There's no question the airport has a huge economic impact on the whole city," ISER economist Gunnar Knapp said. "And it goes way beyond the jobs typically associated with operating the airport. It's a major hub for Alaska, and it makes it possible for Anchorage to operate in its role as the business and political center of the state.

"Not just a ton of people work at the airport. A ton of people use the airport."

But as an avid skier and runner who uses the Coastal Trail often, Knapp views the trail as a treasure. It's something the city brags about and something residents cherish.

Does the trail trump airport expansion? He doesn't think so.

"Eventually the city is going to have to make a difficult choice," Knapp said. "I'd be bummed if I had to ride out along some artificial spit along an active runway with giant planes coming and going practically right on top of me. But I'm enough of a realist about the economic importance of the airport that I'm willing to make some compromises.

"Probably to the horror of some of my friends in the running community, I'd say you get used to stuff you never thought you could get used to. People happily bike along the bike trail by the railroad tracks and every so often a train goes by and it's not a rustic experience."

The airport needs to convince the public that expansion is necessary, and it needs to listen to trail users and be as accommodating as possible, Knapp said. And the public needs to make sure those things happen.

"Citizens ought to be paying attention," he said.

PARKLAND AT RISK

Trail advocates Cathy Gleason and Jim Burkholder say paying attention isn't easy. They think runway plans developed under the radar.

"Up to now, much of this stuff has taken place on the QT," said Burkholder, who isn't convinced the airport has looked hard enough at sending some of the gas-and-go cargo traffic -- those planes that land here only to refuel, not to leave behind cargo to be sorted and placed on other carriers -- to Kenai or Fairbanks.

Gleason said he thinks the airport left Point Woronzof Park off charts and designs so people won't realize the most ambitious runway designs would gobble up parkland.

The city acquired Woronzof Park in a 1994 compromise needed to secure land for Kincaid Elementary. The land swap was complicated and emotional, and when completed, trail supporters believed that stretch of land was safe forever, Gleason said.

"For the airport to come up so cavalierly with a drawing that eliminates that park is really atrocious," she said.

Airport manager Mort Plumb declined a request for an interview, saying he wanted to wait until after a public meeting on Wednesday to comment.

Once the airport picks a design, it will explore land-use issues, and more public meetings will be held as the project moves through the lengthy Environmental Impact Study process, airport spokeswoman Linda Bustamante said.

"They've got a long way to go," Begich said. "We as a community recognize the growth of the airport is needed. And the sense I get is (the airport) recognizes this is a very sensitive issue."

Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.

Runway proposal No. 1

Length: 10,000-foot runway

Location: 3,143 feet west of existing runway

Projected cost: $687 million

Meets airport goals? Yes. Long enough to handle fully loaded cargo jets like 747s and MD-11s. Comes closest to meeting capacity needs of 20-year forecast.

Requires: 130 acres of fill in Cook Inlet, eliminates 191-acre Point Woronzof Park (including some tidelands).

Impact on Coastal Trail: Relocates 1.5 miles of 11-mile trail; adds about half a mile to total length. New piece of trail goes onto man-made spit in the Inlet near Point Woronzof, travels across end of runway, down southern edge for roughly 5,000 feet, rejoins existing trail near the Clitheroe Center.

What people say: "From Point Woronzof all the way to the Clitheroe Center -- about a mile -- that whole area would be affected. The wind exposure would be totally different from what it is today, when you're riding through the woods. The noise is blocked by trees. All of that is gonna go away."

-- Jim Burkholder, trail advocate

Runway proposal No. 2

Length: 10,000-foot runway

Location: 906 feet west of existing runway

Projected cost: $210 million.

Meets airport goals? Partially. Meets projected needs only through 2017. Limited opportunity for simultaneous operations on both north-south runways because they're too close together.

Requires: No fill in Cook Inlet; preserves Point Woronzof Park

Impact on Coastal Trail: Runway would be built over half-mile stretch running south from the Point Woronzof parking lot, forcing the trail closer to AWWU plant. Mature trees that buffer either side of current trail disappear. Fill needed to elevate runway location requiring retaining wall to support the fill.

What people say: "The trail would be squished right up against the sewage treatment plant. It would just be a shame to completely turn that part into a concrete jungle instead of the wooded jungle it is now."

- Trail advocate Cathy Gleason

Runway proposal No. 3

Length: 8,000-foot runway

Location: 3,143 feet west of existing runway

Projected cost: $540 million

Meets airport goals? Partially. Too short to handle fully loaded 747s and MD-11s

Requires: Less fill in Cook Inlet than 10,000-foot version; eliminates 191-acre Point Woronzof Park (including some tidelands).

Impact on Coastal Trail: Relocates three-quarters of a mile of the Coastal Trail; adds about a quarter mile to total length. New piece of trail sits west of the AWWU treatment plant, moves onto man-made spit near the end of the runway, runs about 2,000 feet down the southern edge, rejoins current trail north of the Clitheroe Center.

What people say: "There is no west there. We're right on the bluff already."

- AWWU manager Mark Premo

Runway proposal No. 4

Length: 10,000-foot runway plus reconstruction of southern east-west runway

Location: 906 feet west of existing runway

Projected cost: $507 million

Meets airport goals? Partially. Meets projected needs only through 2017; shifts southern east-west runway 500 feet to the south; converts Runway 7 Right to a taxiway; increases capacity for east-west arrivals and departures. Project depends on developing technology that would permit simultaneous operations on runways separated by 1,200 feet; current technology requires 2,500 feet.

Requires: No fill in Cook Inlet; preserves Point Woronzof Park

Impact on Coastal Trail: same as 10,000-foot runway 906 feet west of existing runway.

Public meeting

A public meeting about airport expansion will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Coast International Inn, 3450 Aviation Drive. The airport will use the first 45 minutes to describe the plans, with the rest of the time available for questions and comments.