By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

BATH – After decades of feeding Bath Iron Works shipbuilders, Jerry Larochelle figures he’s heard every shipyard rumor and worry.

This one’s the worst yet.

“This time, it seems a lot more real,” said Larochelle, whose business, the Sandwich Shop, is a few hundred yards from the shipyard’s entrance.

“You just don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “And it’s all people are talking about.”

On Monday, President Bush unveiled his defense budget. The proposal calls for a cut in the next generation of destroyers, fewer ships and a later start date for construction.

Of the five planned DD(X) destroyers, only two would be built at the Bath yard. The remaining three would be built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss.

However, the original plan called for the construction of three more ships, two of which would have been built in Bath.

If the changes stick, it would mean less work for the yard, Maine’s largest private employer.

For the city, it would be devastating.

Of BIW’s 6,200 workers, about 1,000 live in Bath.

Meanwhile, the city nets about $3.4 million in taxes from the yard each year. Of every tax dollar that comes into the city, 34 cents comes from BIW.

“It’s not time to panic,” said John Bubier, Bath’s city manager. But the heat’s rising.

As contracts for the new ships are contemplated, the yard is looking forward to its final Arleigh Burke-class ships. Currently, 10 are in various stages of construction.

“There’s real concern,” Bubier said Tuesday. “There’s no logical sense of how this budget was constructed.” It means anything can happen, he said.

Very concerned’

And the process has only begun. Congress will have several months to work through the budget before the next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.

That means there will be time to lobby both Congress and the president, said Troy Osgood, vice president of BIW’s largest union, Machinists Union Local S6.

On Monday, just minutes after Bush’s proposal was unveiled, union President Mike Keenan met with U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, about the implications for BIW.

“The members are very concerned,” Osgood said Tuesday at the union’s headquarters. “They’ve been calling here all day.”

But it isn’t the first time the union members, who currently number about 4,100, have heard bad news. More than 2,000 union workers have been laid off, retired or left for other jobs in the past seven years.

For the past year, attrition at the yard has been higher than usual, Osgood said. Between 6 and 7 percent have left, he said. And many of those jobs were not filled.

Former BIW workers have so far been able to find other jobs, said Charles Colgan, a professor of public policy and management at the University of Southern Maine.

Navy less vital

There’s no telling how long that may continue, he said. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s plans have been uncertain, especially since 9/11.

Most of the defense money has been spent on the Army and Air Force, he said. Meanwhile, the Navy has been only a peripheral player. After all, there is little for ships to do in the current fight.

“Osama bin Laden has relatively few submarines or aircraft carriers,” Colgan quipped.

It’s a fair observation, said John Hall, a former Bath city councilor and the owner of J.R. Maxwell & Co., a restaurant in the city’s downtown.

Perhaps people ought to question whether the country really needs many more destroyers, he said. Warfare is changing.

“I don’t know if the president is right or not,” Hall said.

One way or another, Larochelle believes the city will weather changes.

Behind the shop’s counter sits a framed image of John Wayne, commemorating the time he helped launch a destroyer here in the 1970s.

“When I bought the place, there were 12,000 workers over there,” he said. Yet, his business has thrived, even as the work force dwindled to half. He changed his menu, working hard to give customers what they wanted.

“We can only do what we can do,” Larochelle said.