The long-awaited environmental assessment that the state is conducting on a proposed connector route between Bangor and the Canadian Maritimes is nearly complete, according to state officials.

The Maine Department of Transportation has worked for years on a proposed connector route between Route 9 and Interstate 395 and finally is nearing completion on a large chunk of the project, DOT project manager Raymond Faucher said Friday. Work on the environmental assessment began in 2000, he said.

“We’re in the process of reviewing the environmental assessment document,” he said. “There are a couple of items missing. Our objective is, once the document is fulfilled, to print and distribute the document, and we hope to do that sometime in early 2005.”

February or March is the time frame in which DOT officials think the assessment will be done, Faucher said. Once complete, a public meeting will be scheduled and comment on the assessment will be accepted.

DOT staff did their assessment on the 3EIK-2 route, which would extend I-395 by almost two miles along the southern side of U.S. Route 1A in Holden before turning northward and winding through mostly unpopulated areas until crossing Route 9, circumventing East Eddington and reconnecting to Route 9 at the Eddington-Clifton town line.

The 10.6-mile 3EIK-2 alternative could affect 43.2 acres of 10 different waterways and wetlands and would displace two homes. The environmental assessment will give specifics on how these wetlands would be affected by the new road.

The DOT submitted 3EIK-2 as its preferred route in April and in August requested a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to fill in some of the land along the route in order to construct the roadway.

The Army Corps is considering 3EIK-2, but the federal agency also is looking at another alternative known as 2B-2. The 2B-2 route would extend I-395 at its current Wilson Street junction and would roughly follow the Holden-Brewer lines until entering Eddington and connect with a rebuilt Route 9.

The 10.7-mile 2B-2 alternative could affect 48.3 acres of 21 waterways and wetlands and would displace 22 homes.

“We received quite a bit of public comment to our public notice” on the permit request, Jay Clement, permit project manager and Army Corps state representative, said Monday. “Much of it was in the form of a form letter.” He added that it was difficult to gauge the sentiment of the public from the form letter.

In the last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also has requested “additional resource mapping … to provide a little more focused comment on that process to better gauge what the various alternatives mean to the surrounding areas,” he said.

Once the Army Corps completes its investigation, “one or a series of meetings will be held to nail the question of alternatives down,” Clement said.

He gave no specific date for the meetings, but said they would be held in the next couple of months.

DOT officials are not waiting for the Army Corps’ decision.

“We haven’t been able to get a sign-off confirmation from the Corps of Engineers, but we wanted to continue the process,” Faucher said. “That’s why we’re looking to complete the [assessment] document and get it printed.”