Anchorage Daily News

The Anchorage airport will pick a design for a new north-south runway in the next several weeks, but it'll be years before the project is cleared for takeoff.

Work will begin on a federally required Environmental Impact Statement this fall and could take three years to complete, airport spokeswoman Linda Bustamante said.

Construction could begin in five to seven years, she said.

Before then, the airport must clear a number of hurdles.

It needs to acquire land from the Heritage Land Bank -- the city's real estate arm -- and Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility. And if it picks one of the designs that extends the runway into Cook Inlet, it needs to convince the public to give up Point Woronzof Park. Only voters can approve using park land.

If the project involves building in the Inlet, federal permits will be required under the Clean Water Act and the River and Harbor Act, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The corps will explore how a man-made spit in the Inlet would affect water flow patterns, said Steve Boardman, chief of the civil project management branch for the corps in Alaska.

"That's a very dynamic water body out there," he said. "What we're learning is anything that happens to it affects places far away from the immediate area."

Because in-fill would encroach on wetlands and the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge, the airport would also need a permit from Fish & Game and probably the state Department of Natural Resources, refuge manager Joe Meehan said.

"The wetlands just south of the sewage treatment plant have valuable vegetation," he said. "There are migratory birds there by the hundreds if not the thousands."

The project will impact other wildlife too, especially if the airport chooses to build in the Inlet. The land west of the airport is a popular movement corridor for moose, and a new runway will narrow parts of the route, state biologist Rick Sinnott said.

"Presumably, trail users and moose will be forced into a narrow, fenced corridor for over 3,000 feet," he said. "I wouldn't want to be using the Coastal Trail on the day that a cow and calf decided to make the transit."

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

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