WASHINGTON – The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard remains in danger of closing, despite a productive meeting Portsmouth-area representatives had with Pentagon officials on Wednesday, said several people who attended the session.

“It was what we expected,” retired Navy Capt. William McDonough, a former commander of the shipyard and spokesman for the Seacoast Shipyard Association, said of the meeting. “It’s gratifying that we were well received, and I can only hope the information moves up the line and the decision comes out favorably.”

The yard, located in Kittery, Maine, specializes in maintaining and overhauling nuclear submarines. It is a major employer in southern Maine and eastern New Hampshire, with more than 4,800 civilian workers on the payroll in 2004.

But the facility is vulnerable to being closed as part of the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure process, which seeks to reduce the number of military bases in the post-Cold War world.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will announce his decisions on base closings by May 16.

Business and community leaders from Maine and New Hampshire were also involved in the meeting at the Pentagon – Portsmouth City Manager John Bohenko; Sanford, Maine, Town Manager Mark Green; Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce President Dick Ingram; and Kennebunk Savings Bank President Joel Stevens.

On Tuesday, they met with members of the Maine and New Hampshire congressional delegations and their staffs, who support keeping the shipyard open, to determine the strongest arguments to make when they met with a deputy assistant Navy secretary and a deputy Defense undersecretary at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Bohenko said he and his fellow area representatives focused in the Pentagon meeting on the “efficiency aspect” of the shipyard and argued that its location on the water and near an airport could lead to “synergies” in the future. The shipyard operates up to 50 percent faster and 50 percent cheaper than other yards, congressional staff members said at the Tuesday meeting.

Ingram called Wednesday’s meeting “necessary” and “worthwhile” because he and the other area representatives had different viewpoints from the lawmakers, who, he said, do not live in the area. Still, he came away with “no better sense of whether the news will be good or bad,” he said.

Members of Maine’s congressional delegation, who had representatives at the Pentagon meeting, also were pleased, according to a joint statement by Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Democratic Rep. Tom Allen.

The meeting “was an opportunity for Pentagon leadership to hear firsthand from local business and community leaders the unique contributions offered by Portsmouth Shipyard, of which there are many,” the statement read. “We will continue to work with members of the delegation and the shipyard community to protect” the shipyard.

Pentagon officials will continue to gather data over the next several weeks, Bohenko said, meaning there is still time for concerned citizens to write to Rumsfeld to justify keeping the shipyard open.

The congressional delegations also promised to continue to fight to keep the shipyard open.