BAY MINETTE, Ala. — State officials presented to the public three proposed routes for an Interstate 65 and I-10 connector road Thursday night, giving Baldwin County residents and officials a chance to offer feedback at a public involvement meeting at Bay Minette City Hall.

Representatives from the Alabama Department of Transportation, who presented maps in the City Hall lobby and were present for questioning, faced a number of residents who were opposed to the state’s options — in particular an option that many say could affect the state’s landscape, natural resources and citizens.

Concerns centered on the easternmost proposed route for the connector road, which would run north to south just west of the Alabama-Florida state line, intersecting I-65 near Perdido. The route would cut through wetlands, residents said, and could potentially interfere with the Perdido River.

Though the corridor’s construction is projected to take a number of years, some residents are working now, they said, to ensure their voices are heard.

“I’m trying to get a sense of what (ALDOT’s) thinking is right now,” said Mark Hoffman, a Baldwin County resident whose family owns more than 400 acres of land near the Perdido River. “They keep saying that nothing has been decided, but I get the sense that they’re closer to a decision than perhaps they’re sharing.”

“We’re concerned about the environment. We’re very sensitive about the environment and species protection. We’ve identified 25 or 30 different classes of birds on the property. It’s going very close to the Perdido River so we’ve got erosion issues with that,” he said.

The proposed corridor also worries city and county officials who have worked together to draft a proposed map of their own that would take the new corridor closer to Bay Minette, eventually tracing the edge of the mega site set to host a hybrid automobile manufacturing plant just south of I-65.

Though one of the state’s options runs similar to the county’s, it does not account for the mega site, and only routes being studied by ALDOT were on display at the meeting. Bay Minette Mayor Jamie Tillery passed out flyers that contained the map preferred by local officials. To get on the same page, she said, state and local officials need to meet face-to-face and discuss the benefits of each route for both parties.

“What we really need to do is sit down with ALDOT,” she said. “What we want is the same thing. We want the best hurricane route for evacuation. The county’s route is the most economically feasible route. It’s the safest route as far as protecting the environment, and it’s the most profitable route for the citizens. It has residential buildup, it has industrial buildup.”

ALDOT preconstruction engineer Jackie Glasgow said that construction of the new corridor, which will have a toll charge, would take a minimum of 10 years. The state right now is in the preliminary stages of surveying the three options and responding to public comments left by citizens at local meetings.

From there, he said, aspects including environmental impact will be analyzed.

“As the study goes on past this, next time around we’ll be looking in-depth at each alignment in order to study the impact on endangered species, the wetlands, people, rights-of-way costs all the way up until we get to a point where we have sufficient information and we feel we can designate a final alignment,” Glasgow said.