AUGUSTA – All three major military and shipbuilding facilities in Maine “are at substantial risk” of shutting down in the next few years, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen said.

Maine’s 1st District Democratic congressman described a bleak outlook for Brunswick Naval Air Station and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery as the federal government begins its latest round of base closures.

He also said the privately owned Bath Iron Works shipyard faces an unsure future because of a Navy plan to shift all new destroyer contracts to either BIW or a competing site in Mississippi instead of sharing the contracts between the two.

“All three facilities are at substantial risk,” Allen of Portland told editors at the Kennebec Journal in Augusta.

Allen, who has been active in efforts by Maine’s congressional delegation to keep the military and shipbuilding installations open, said the military bases face the biggest threat of being closed.

Elected leaders from Maine have strongly criticized President Bush for not including anyone from New England on a nine-member commission that will recommend military base closures across the country this year.

Allen said he fears for the Portsmouth shipyard the most. The Kittery site has been on the list of possible closures before, and with no one from New England on the commission to defend the site, it might be put back on the list, he said.

“The advantage they have is they’ve become much more efficient” since the last round of closures, Allen said.

The Brunswick facility could stay off the closure list on the basis of its strategic location and recent upgrades, Allen said.