Among the findings of a report on keeping the Brunswick Naval Air Station open:

• More than 22 million people live within the base’s patrol area.

• In the past four years, the Pentagon has spent an average of $37.5 million on new construction there, dramatically updating facilities throughout the base.

• Military and civilian salaries at the base will total $147 million this year.

• The base has immediate access to more than 63,000 square miles of unencumbered airspace, a vast space when compared to bases in urban areas such as Norfolk, Va., and Jacksonville, Fla.

• For 40 years, the base has kept its runways and airfield fully operational in all weather, every day of the year.

Backers pushing to keep BNAS

BRUNSWICK – In an age when America worries about its homeland, Brunswick Naval Air Station must remain open.

That’s the message of a report to be released Tuesday by local base supporters, who plan to distribute the 20-page document throughout Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks.

As the Pentagon prepares to close 100 or more bases, the report makes the case for the Brunswick Naval Air Station’s survival.

“We had to do this,” said Richard Tetrev, who leads the NAS Brunswick Task Force. “We have a huge issue of education. Most of the decision-makers know nothing about Brunswick.”

But that can be fixed, said Tetrev, the former second-in-command at the base. People who understand the base and its role in the Northeast will decide to keep it open, he said. They may even expand it.

Tetrev and his co-authors, who include a retired admiral and a retired captain, say the base is capable of housing tanker aircraft, special warfare units or a fighter squadron.

First things first, though. The base must stay open.

And Brunswick is vulnerable. In its report, the task force estimates that the Pentagon spends about $330 million a year to operate the coastal base. Leaders must decide if it’s worth it.

“We’re trying to show them they get a lot of bang for that $330 million,” Tetrev said.

The best argument is the base’s unique position, said Harry Rich, a retired admiral.

“I’m hoping its clincher will be homeland security,” said Rich.

In a way, BNAS was helped by past closures. In 1994, Brunswick was one of nine fully operational, active-duty bases in the Northeast. Since then, they have all either shut down or changed roles.

Only Brunswick remains.

“I see it as a vital part of national security,” said Rich. “Everything changed after 9/11.”

In the weeks after the attacks, P-3 Orions from Brunswick patrolled much of the Eastern seaboard, including New York City.

The locally based aircraft can patrol out for 1,000 miles in any direction and return to Brunswick to land.

That role is at the center of the report.

“As we look back at 9/11, we urge all decision-makers to remember that the primary thrust of the attack was in New York City and that the Northeast has some of the largest population areas in the United States,” reads the report.

Though only 20 pages long, the document took months to prepare and write, even for insiders such as Tetrev.

The work was made more difficult by a new Pentagon policy, which forced all base commanders and many military and civilian staffers to sign nondisclosure agreements. The move effectively prevented bases from supplying all but the most basic information to groups like Tetrev’s.

Sometimes citing the Freedom of Information Act, the group managed to pull together enough information, Tetrev said.

The report includes information on the number of people – 22 million – who live within the base’s patrol area and this year’s total for military and civilian salaries: $147 million.

It also suggests that the base could be more fully developed.

Two reserve aircraft squadrons came to the base after the Navy closed its base in South Weymouth, Mass., outside Boston. More could come.

“Only about a third of the property at the base is developed,” said Tetrev. It leaves a huge space to grow, he said. And the two 8,000-foot runways are big enough to handle anything the military flies.

It’s a message Tetrev hopes will make it to Washington.

Within the next few weeks, bound copies of the report will be delivered to members of the congressional delegation, in hopes that they can get it to the right people in the Department of Defense.

Unlike many areas, which have hired pricey lobbyists to spread the message, the all-volunteer task force hopes Maine’s congressmen and senators can get the message out.

“We provide this tool,” Tetrev said. “They provide the access.”