Harold Ward of Wasilla said he supported the bridge and subsequent development of an airport to handle more cargo. "I look at this as a tremendous opportunity to grow commercially in that area," Ward said.

Jay Nolfi of Big Lake argued in favor of the bridge as an escape route in disasters.

Wasilla resident William Bruu said he felt the bridge would benefit Anchorage and Anchorage only. Bridges should come as a result of major infrastructure, and there is no such infrastructure in the Valley yet, he said.

Christie Prairie Chicken, a resident of the Knik area, said she opposed development. Prairie Chicken, who lives with her spouse in an area occupied by numerous dog mushers, said hundreds of people in the Knik area prefer their current peaceful lifestyles and didn't want to be connected to Anchorage.

Lois Epstein, of Cook Inlet Keeper, a citizen group dedicated to protecting the Cook Inlet watershed, told the panel "there are smart ways to grow and bad ways. We don't want Anchorage to look like Los Angeles in 20 years."

Epstein read from a letter signed by seven organizations, including the Cook Inlet Keeper, Alaska Public Interest Research Group and the Alaska Center for the Environment, which proposed a four-pronged alternative to the bridge. The organizations proposed instituting regular car ferry transit to Point MacKenzie, a commuter rail between the Valley and Anchorage, carpool and vanpool incentives for travel between those areas, and expanded bus service and streetcar transit in Anchorage.

Epstein said these transportation options would meet the needs of the bridge project potentially at lower cost, while still stimulating economic development and allowing for population growth.

Other benefits of the options would be helping downtown Anchorage businesses, which rely on pedestrian traffic, and protection of the Cook Inlet beluga whales and Cook Inlet salmon, she said.

Epstein also said KABATA is placing undue emphasis on Port of Anchorage-Port MacKenzie interconnection as a primary purpose and need for the bridge. Given the planned $236 million expansion of the Port of Anchorage, the Anchorage port will not need a connection to Port MacKenzie for overflow cargo for several decades, she said.

Kevin Doyle, project manager for HDR on the Knik Arm Bridge, noted that the Knik Arm Bridge is being proposed as part of an intermodal regional transportation network to include roads, bridges, railroads, airports, marine vessels, ferries and ports. That includes the multi-million dollar Port MacKenzie, which is currently devoid of vessel traffic except for occasional ships exporting wood chips for markets in Japan and Korea.

A ferry to connect the Port of Anchorage and Port MacKenzie is proposed to be in operation by 2007. Mat-Su Borough manager John Duffy said the borough has $15 million to $18 million in hand for project infrastructure, including landings and terminals at Anchorage and Point MacKenzie.

Many cost questions surrounding the bridge remain to be answered, including passenger and vehicle fares for the ferry and vehicle fares for the proposed bridge. KABATA has contracted with a firm in Connecticut to analyze potential use, costs of maintenance and related items, and to determine a rate for public use of the bridge.

Meanwhile, KABATA continues to promote its project on the Internet, through printed bulletins and at public meetings. The latest KABATA sessions were held in Wasilla July 12 and Anchorage July 13.

KABATA has expanded the range of corridor alternatives for the bridge on the Anchorage side to include routes across Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson lands to connect with the Glenn Highway. Feedback from military, state and city officials is anticipated soon, KABATA officials said in their July bulletin. Similar access routes are under investigation for connections into the planned or existing roadway networks in the Mat-Su Borough.

Still in progress too is the federal environmental impact statement. The EIS will include several studies, examining potential impacts to everything from water bodies and water quality to wetlands, essential fish habitat and noise. Ongoing EIS projects include surveys by biologists to determine what types of critters, including salmon and beluga whales, are at home in the waters of Knik Arm.

KABATA invited the news media to see the projects July 12 in several boat tours that took journalists from the Ship Creek small boat harbor in Anchorage to several proposed sites for the bridge, and to Port MacKenzie. Darryl Jordan, KABATA's deputy executive director, said the best route for the bridge would most likely be north of the narrowest part of Knik Arm, where the water depths are shallower and subsurface soils are harder and more compact.