Anchorage Daily News
(Published: March 7, 2003)
The state is drawing out the comment period on routes for the proposed extension of Anchorage's Coastal Trail once again. It was supposed to have ended today. The new deadline is May 16.
The state Department of Transportation commissioner added more than two months because the project is so controversial and the state wants everyone with an opinion to have a chance to send it in, said John Manly, spokesman for Gov. Frank Murkowski.
On the table is a draft environmental impact report that supports a mostly coastal route to extend the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail 13 miles from Kincaid Park to Potter Marsh. The trail is expected to be paid for mostly with federal dollars and is estimated to cost $37 million. The existing trail travels 11 miles from downtown to Kincaid.
Critics of the coastal route say too much private property will need to be taken to build it and it will harm the wildlife in the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge.
Some of the most controversial comments are likely to be the 75 pages state Department of Fish and Game biologists wrote about problems they see with the coastal route.
The Southcentral Habitat Division sent those comments to Juneau for review last Friday, said regional supervisor Lance Trasky. They are highly critical -- "tactfully" -- about the route favored by the DOT, Trasky said. The comments cite, for example, the damage that dogs might do to bird habitat along the coast, the number of trees that would be cut to build the trail, and the amount of fill to be used.
The comments went to acting Fish and Game Commissioner Kevin Duffy at a time when the Habitat Divison is being dismantled and Murkowski is focused on preparing his budget.
Trasky is due to be laid off and some other Habitat biologists are to be terminated or transferred as part of Murkowski's plan to streamline permitting for development projects.
Manly said he doesn't know whether the need for more review of the Habitat Division's trail comments was partly responsible for the 60-day comment extension.
"It kind of came out of left field," said Mark Dalton of HDR Alaska, the state contractor responsible for collecting and organizing the comments.
But he said some people had appeared to be rushing to make today's deadline, and now they're taking their time, with announcement of the extension.
HDR has received close to 1,000 comments, Dalton said.
The delay won't hurt anything, he said. "It just adds more time."
After the comment period closes, a final decision could be made on a route for the project or whether to build it at all.
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Reporter Rosemary Shinohara can be reached at rshinohara@adn.com and 907-257-4340.