Enviros concerned about Interstate 11

Not everyone is thrilled about the possibility of a new interstate to connect Las Vegas and Phoenix.

While business interests are cheering, the Sierra Club in Arizona is bracing itself, according to the Arizona Republic.

"We are very concerned about it. We're concerned what it will do to Arizona," Sandy Bahr, the organization's state director told the newspaper. "There are huge environmental concerns any time you build a new freeway."

The project could degrade air quality and intrude on sensitive habitat, Bahr said, as well as promote sprawl in now-virgin desert.

"We really question the need of this," she said.

In the meantime, officials with the Arizona Department of Transportation and the association of Phoenix-area governments said the price tag for an Interstate 11 -- an unknown billions of dollars -- "makes I-11 a leading candidate to become Arizona's first toll road," the paper reported.