BRUNSWICK – Next week, the panel overseeing the redevelopment of Brunswick Naval Air Station will vote on a master plan designed to economically prepare communities affected by the base’s 2011 closure.

The largely ceremonial vote by the Brunswick Local Redevelopment Authority’s board of directors will mark a major milestone for the future of the 3,300-acre facility and its reconnection to a region expected to lose 5,000 jobs and $140 million in income.

The reuse plan is the result of a $1.8 million, two-year process, and its on-time completion may give rise to celebration, considering a nine-month delay while the redevelopment authority waited for the U.S. Navy to declare surplus properties.

Nevertheless, the Dec. 19 vote also marks the beginning of new and daunting challenges. Next year, the new Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority will begin the task of marketing and implementing the plan.

It will be a tall order.

Adoption of the master plan is set against a turbulent national backdrop. The base decommissioning was part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure proposed by the Department of Defense. Earlier this year, the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press reported alarming overruns in the Department of Defense’s original base closure cost estimates. The report cited figures provided by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, that said base closures were already $10 billion more than original estimates.

This summer, the Brunswick base closure cost was already $53 million, or 27 percent, more than than the $193.2 million that was originally proposed.

The defense department says it will save $115 million annually by closing the Brunswick base.

The GAO report has prompted lawmakers in Washington, D.C., and in base-closure states to question the 2005 decisions. On Monday, the New Jersey Senate unanimously supported a resolution calling for reversal of the decision to close that state’s Fort Monmouth base.

On Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee was expected to examine the Department of Defense’s proposed savings. Maine’s congressional delegation has continuously questioned Base Realignment and Closure savings, and the outcome of those hearings could be relevant to the Brunswick station.

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, released a statement praising the Armed Services Committee for reviewing the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure round and lobbying for additional oversight. Allen also commended the Brunswick Local Redevelopment Authority for its ongoing work. But the release of his statement a day before the Armed Services Committee hearings suggests there is momentum to review the Brunswick base closure.

Reversal of any base closure would require an act of Congress. Regardless of the outcome, the additional scrutiny of expenditures could have consequences for environmental cleanup at Brunswick, which is critical to base redevelopment. Any cleanup delay could result in delayed redevelopment.

Nineteen Superfund hazardous waste sites have already been identified at the facility and remediation is under way on 12 of them. However, recent discoveries at some of the sites raise fears about the extent of contamination at the Brunswick station.

Last week, Suzanne Johnson of the citizen-initiated Restoration Advisory Board warned the Brunswick Town Council that cleanup could be more expensive and more complex than they’d anticipated.

And, given the base closure overruns, the political climate could make seeking additional federal funding for cleanup more troublesome.

“A large part of the BRAC budget is remediation costs,” Johnson said Tuesday. “We already knew that they were woefully underfunded, but now the question is where do we go to get the extra money? Economic development at BNAS is important, but more important is cleaning up without saddling the community with the extra costs.”

Brunswick Local Redevelopment Authority officials are just as concerned.

On Wednesday, Deputy Director Jeffrey Jordan said the authority and the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority are plowing forward regardless of the tremors in Washington. However, he acknowledged that decisions there could make environmental cleanup at the Brunswick base more difficult.

While the Navy is on the hook for remediation at the Brunswick base, its position has been to clean up for current uses. The Brunswick Local Redevelopment Authority, meanwhile, has said it and the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority will hold the Navy responsible for cleanup compatible with uses proposed by the master plan.

While those conflicts loom in the coming months, the Brunswick Local Redevelopment Authority is preparing to adopt an optimistic reuse plan it hopes will create 13,800 jobs, annual wages of $730 million and an individual average annual income of $53,000. Such projections are based on a 20-year build-out, as are the annual income taxes of $40.8 million and annual property taxes of $19 million.

The board of directors will convene at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Municipal Meeting Facility on McKeen Street.

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