State leaders on Tuesday released a list of prospective sites they offered the Navy as better alternatives than the Navy's preferred site in Washington and Beaufort counties, which is near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Broad opposition to that site has prompted the Navy to reconsider its options.

Two of the new alternative sites are centered in rural Gates County, and two are in Camden County in northeastern North Carolina near the Virginia border. Some aircraft noise could affect neighboring counties such as Currituck and Hertford.

The northeastern sites are 20 to 50 miles from Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., the base for most of the squadrons of Super Hornet fighter jets that would use the airfield.

Also on the list are two sites in southeastern North Carolina. One site is in the Angola Bay game lands on the border of Duplin and Pender counties. The other is the Hofmann Forest, a research forest in Jones and Onslow counties.

Environmental groups said they wanted to study the sites in more detail before endorsing any. But they did not express the immediate opposition that erupted over the Washington County site.

The secretary of the Navy is reviewing an analysis of the six new North Carolina sites and 10 others offered by Virginia. The Navy is expected to decide by mid-November whether to undertake in-depth environmental reviews of any of them.

"I'm hopeful the secretary of the Navy will elect to add some sites to the list of alternatives that are being prepared and that a solution will emerge," said Bill Ross, state secretary of environment and natural resources, who has worked with the Navy on the alternatives. "It's not up to us to make a deal but to provide the framework through which a solution can emerge."

The Navy has sought to build the jetway on a site between existing bases at Oceana and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point near Havelock. Squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets would use the remote runway to simulate night landings on aircraft carriers. The airfield would bring about 50 jobs such as firefighters and security workers.

If the Navy reopens the site selection, it would take about 18 months to two years for the Navy to complete the process.

"I think we have some very good options," said David Anderson, vice commander of Fleet Forces Command, who prepared the analysis for the secretary of the Navy. "It would be presumptuous for me to say which ones are good or which ones may fall off the table."

While the southeastern sites are close to Cherry Point, where two Super Hornet squadrons would be based, they are more than 100 miles from Oceana, perhaps making them less likely choices.

"Obviously the northern sites would appear to make more sense for us," Anderson said.

The six new sites were on a list of 27 sites that the Navy screened early in the selection process but cut. One criterion the Navy has revised is the amount of land it wants to acquire.

Environmental groups successfully challenged in court the Navy's selection of the site near the national wildlife refuge. They came away from Tuesday's meeting encouraged by a tone of cooperation.

Jane Preyer, director of Environmental Defense's office in North Carolina and a member of the advisory task force, said environmental groups had to learn more about the sites.

"On first blush, it makes you want to open the door and learn more about these," Preyer said. "I'm encouraged the process is reopened and Governor Easley and Secretary Ross have made headway with the Navy and we may have a chance to catch some of the problems upfront."

Chris Canfield, executive director of Audubon North Carolina, which was a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Navy, said he was encouraged by the tone of cooperation.

"We're going to want to do a thorough analysis of the sites," Canfield said.

Canfield said the Audubon's concern with the Navy's favored site near Pocosin Lake was the sizable numbers of large migratory waterfowl drawn to the area. He said some of the alternative sites may not have those kinds of drawbacks.

Derb Carter, director of the Southern Environmental Law Center's office in Chapel Hill, said many of the alternative sites involve pine timberlands that don't attract migratory waterfowl.

"It appears clear the Navy is trying to avoid the areas where a clear conflict would exist such as with a national wildlife refuge and large concentration of waterfowl and endangered red wolves," Carter said. "We're encouraged they seem to be responding to those concerns."

Sid Eagles, chairman of the landing field advisory panel appointed by the governor, said the group would likely schedule public meetings in the areas where the new sites are located.