PORTLAND – The Navy made it clear in a letter to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins that it does not want to see the Brunswick Naval Air Station closed and envisions a continued role in NATO exercises, refueling aircraft and hosting a Navy survival school.

The Brunswick base has “enormous strategic value as the last remaining active duty airfield in the Northeast,” wrote Ann Rathmell Davis, an assistant to the Navy secretary on base realignment and closure issues, in a letter Tuesday.

In fact, the Navy continues to view Brunswick as “the optimal site in New England for P-3 detachment missions,” she wrote.

Collins, R-Maine, said the letter will be used as Brunswick supporters press their case for keeping the base at full strength during a public hearing of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission on Aug. 10 in Washington, D.C.

“It is the strongest statement that I have seen from the Navy about the value of the Brunswick Naval Air Station,” she said Wednesday. “It’s ironic because it makes the case for having Brunswick as a fully operational base.”

The Pentagon originally proposed moving P-3 Orion patrol aircraft to Jacksonville, Fla., and reassigning 2,300 military personnel. But the base closing commission voted 8-1 to add Brunswick to the list of those being considered for closure.

Base supporters have contended that the base’s strategic value makes it too important to close. And they say it doesn’t make sense to scale it back, either, because doing so would eliminate any possibility that it could be redeveloped.

In her letter, Davis acknowledged that scaling back Brunswick would lengthen the response time to maritime threats in the Northeast.

The Navy supports keeping Brunswick Naval Air Station open in a limited role because it would support future requirements for homeland defense, as well as providing “surge capacity” for the Navy, she wrote.

The base has a fully functional weapons facility, an ability to service all aircraft in the Defense Department arsenal and a geographic location that allows maritime patrol aircraft to avoid passing over inhabited areas, she wrote.

In addition, the Pentagon envisions Navy and Marine Reserve units to continue to operate in Brunswick and for the Brunswick base to continue to serve as home to the Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School in western Maine.