KITTERY, Maine (AP) – The Defense Department has proposed closing the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard – the nation’s oldest – and changing the mission of the Brunswick Naval Air Station as part of a massive reorganization of the nation’s military, members of the Maine and New Hampshire congressional delegations said Friday.
The news, confirmed shortly before Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was scheduled to make an announcement on base closings, ends months of anxious anticipation and speculation over which bases the nation’s military leaders had deemed obsolete.
“We are outraged that the Department of Defense has targeted the best shipyard in the nation for closure, but we know that this decision is not final,” the congressional delegations said in a statement.
Brunswick would lose 2,300 military and 60 civilian jobs. The base has 4,800 military and civilian employees and Portsmouth has 4,300 civilian workers from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Together, the bases pump more than $300 million into the regional economy.
“I think a lot of people will be surprised because we worked hard on it. I know I’ll be talking about this with the governor,” said Walter Wheeler, a Maine state representative from Kittery who worked at the shipyard for 24 years. “It’s going to be hard to get jobs because there aren’t any good-paying jobs like there are in the shipyard.”
Richard Ingram, president of the Greater Portsmouth, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, said he doesn’t consider the announcement a done deal.
“That’s obviously not the decision we wanted to hear, but we knew we had work to do one way or the other whether we were on the list or not on list, and we’re prepared,” Ingram said.
“Now that’s it out in public we can deal with it aggressively. There’s a broad coalition of community support for the shipyard and we’ll carry on the fight.”
Portsmouth Mayor Evelyn Sirrell repeated the battle cry of Navy hero John Paul Jones, whose house is a city landmark.
“We have not yet begun to fight,” she said.
“This is the third time the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has been on the list for recommended closure and each time before we have successfully gotten it removed. We won’t give up until we have succeeded once again,” she said.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said he was disappointed, but now the case needs to be made that the shipyard represents a key element of the national defense structure. Rumsfeld’s recommendations will be submitted to an independent Base Realighment and Closure Commission that will hold hearings and make a final recommendation to President Bush by Sept. 8.
“Our case is, I think a strong one,” he said, based on several themes: that it’s one of four nuclear facilities that can overhaul and maintain nuclear ships, that it has a unique work force consistently rated the best in the shipyard area, and that it’s been repairing submarines ahead of schedule and under cost.
Jay Korman, a naval analyst at DFI International, said the recommendation of the shipyard’s closing comes as no surprise.
“The mission that that facility was built for went away. Even though they’ve tried to stay focused and to be relevant, their location and mission worked against them,” Korman said from his office in Washington, D.C.
What a realignment, or a change in mission, would bring for Brunswick Naval Air Station is unclear, but the Pentagon envisions a smaller military staff.
The list also contained other surprises.
In Maine, it proposed closing a Defense Finance and Accounting center created at the former Loring Air Force Base, a move that would cost 241 jobs. It also proposed eliminating a small Naval Reserve Center with seven civilian jobs.
However, the Maine Air National Guard base at Bangor International Airport would actually gain about 240 military and civilian jobs.
In Portsmouth, the list also recommends closing an Army Reserve Center, costing 44 jobs, but suggests adding 48 jobs at another center at the Pease International Tradeport.
Eds: Associated Press writer Norma Love contributed to this story.
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