Base closure’s roller-coaster struck Maine yesterday as the closure commission voted to shut down Brunswick Naval Air Station and to rescue Portsmouth Naval Shipyard from the Pentagon’s dust bin. It was, in effect, the end of a loopy process that began last winter with assurances from experts that Brunswick’s homeland security mission would keep it off the Pentagon’s list but that Portsmouth could not again escape a military funeral. So much for the experts.

The Base Realignment and Closure commission has not yet finished voting – Maine is still waiting to hear the fate of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service at Limestone – but it was already emphatic in swiftly setting its own course. Clearly, its nine members knew how they would be voting on almost all of the hundreds of closures before them. The theater of the day was listening to the praise of various facilities before they were axed. The most significant decision by the council was its decision to keep open both the New London Submarine Base in Groton, Conn. (8,000 jobs) and Portsmouth (4,500 jobs). They were two of the major cost-savers in the Navy’s proposal, and their reinstatement is a rebuke to the military’s strategy of moving submarine services south and to the Pacific.

Commission Chairman Anthony Principi echoed the Maine delegation’s defense when he listed his reasons for voting against Portsmouth’s closure. The yard is, he said, “the gold standard” among shipyards, with model labor-management relations and the fastest submarine turnaround time. He said he believed the cost of shutting down the nuclear-submarine base was understated, that it was a “national resource and would be a tragedy to lose it.”

The commission’s disagreement with the Pentagon over the New England submarine facilities was also about the Pentagon’s belief that the Navy had excess submarine capacity. Would the three other depot and maintenance yards (in Norfolk, Va., Bremerton, Wash., and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii) have enough space and workers to serve the nation’s fleet of submarines? The answer would depend on the number of boats.

There are approximately 55 now but that number is expected to fall – to the high 40s or low 40s? – sometime in the next decade. The commission didn’t like policy by guesswork, nor did it like the idea of shaving excess capacity to near zero. “There is no excess excess capacity,” was how Commissioner Philip Coyle put it.

That assessment will matter in the next BRAC round.

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Meanwhile, closing Brunswick is an awful blow to the community and to the state. The base began operations in 1943, was deactivated after World War II, then reactivated in 1951 with a mission of anti-submarine warfare. It employs about 4,800 military, civilian and reserve personnel, adding about $187 million annually to the local economy. Its closure will begin in 2009 and is expected to be completed by 2011.

The sense among commissioners was that realigning the base as the Pentagon had proposed – moving the P3 planes to Jacksonville, Fla., while keeping the two airfields open – was unnecessary given that other regional airfields could be used for North Atlantic operations and that it stood in the way of the community redeveloping the base. The commission was clear that the expected savings of $800 million over 20 years by closing a base the Pentagon had trouble deciding it wanted was a relatively easy choice even as they praised the Maine facility.

Closing Brunswick hastens the end of a major military presence in Maine, but it opens other opportunities. While noting the pain of jobs lost, Rep. Tom Allen yesterday said Brunswick had enormous potential. “Now we have to turn our attention to redevelopment with the same energy we used to defend the base,” he said. It will be up to the congressional delegation to find federal money to help with that transition.

That work already has begun. The delegation yesterday had ready a list of sources of funding, primarily from the Office of Economic Adjustment, to help community organization with planning and transition. Funds could also come from the military itself, the Department of Labor and the Employment and Training Administration as well as individual grants. Brunswick is a great place to attempt redevelopment, but it needs all the support it can get.

On the state level, Gov. Baldacci yesterday created the Office of Redevelopment and Re-employment, a single state entity to respond to all closure responses. Worker retraining is expected to begin soon, two years before the actual job losses, and the State Housing Authority will make $2 million in resources available to affected families. In addition, the governor announced that existing bond revenues will be aimed at helping the Brunswick area and he will make $200,000 available immediately to small businesses looking to expand in the area. It is an impressive start on a challenging problem.

The BRAC process still has the formality of the president receiving the commission’s report, which he said he plans to approve, and Congress voting on the entire package without amendment, a restriction that ensures the commission’s decisions will stand. While Kittery celebrates, Limestone waits and Brunswick regroups, Maine’s state and federal leaders must continue to act quickly.

Maine can come back stronger eventually, but there’s a lot of work to be done between here and there.