Officials with the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority say an environmental impact statement is the next step toward advancing the bridge to connect the Port of Anchorage and Port MacKenzie.
The EIS, to be prepared under contract for the Federal Highway Administration, will take a minimum of one year, said Darryl Jordan, deputy executive director/program manager for KABATA.
The EIS is required to evaluate the project's potential impact on the environment and to obtain construction permits, Jordan said.
The scoping phase of the EIS research, during which comments on the project are gathered from the public and various government agencies, comes first. Jordan said he hoped to conduct those hearings in March in the greater Anchorage Bowl.
KABATA officials said the bridge is necessary because while the ports are physically only two miles apart, the only current connection between them requires a 90-minute drive.
Information gathered on the potential impact of building or not building, and ultimately the preferred alternative, will be published as a draft EIS, hopefully by July, Jordan said. The draft EIS will then go out for public review and if there are no objections and no additional studies required, the final EIS could be out to the public by February 2006, he said.
Jordan said KABATA has already subcontracted with Northern Economics, an Anchorage-based economics firm, to conduct economic impact studies related to the EIS.
Jordan joined KABATA Jan. 1 as a manager. Immediately before that he was working as a consultant on the bridge project, helping them with management of the field work contracts.
Jordan is also the former president and chairman of the board of Ahtna Inc., a regional Alaska Native corporation.
Jordan was dismissed from Ahtna in early 2001 for the alleged mismanagement of corporation assets. He was subsequently named in a lawsuit filed by Ahtna over of a number of transactions involving Clearwater, an environmental and construction contractor.
Jordan, who owned 51 percent of Clearwater, sold half of his interest in the firm to Ahtna at a time when he was president and chairman of the board. When Clearwater suffered huge losses and became insolvent, Ahtna had to cover those losses.
Jordan denies any wrongdoing.
"None of those allegation were true. If they were, there would be some obvious basis for concern," Jordan said.
Debt represented by the suit was discharged by the state bankruptcy court after Jordan declared bankruptcy last summer, said a spokesman for Ahtna.
