Brunswick closure shocks supporters BRAC panel overrules Pentagon 7-2

BRUNSWICK – The base closure commission’s decision to eliminate Brunswick Naval Air Station – the last active-duty airfield in New England – stunned supporters of the base Wednesday.

Critics said the decision leaves the Northeast without a key strategic asset in homeland defense. The base’s P-3 Orion aircraft provide surveillance of North Atlantic shipping lanes.

“I don’t believe that any amount of cost savings can justify leaving an entire quadrant of the nation defenseless,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

Supporters could hardly believe that the commission voted 7-2 to overrule the Pentagon, which made it clear that it did not want to close the base.

The Navy envisioned a scaled-back base to support future requirements for homeland defense, as well as providing “surge capacity.” The Pentagon also envisioned a continued role in NATO exercises and hosting a Navy survival school.

The Navy continued to view Brunswick as “the optimal site in New England” for P-3 detachment missions, a Navy official wrote last month.

But when it came time to vote, commissioners said scaling back the base would have resulted in job losses while preventing local and state officials from redeveloping the 3,200-acre site, which is considered ripe for redevelopment.

Commissioner Harold Gehman, a retired Navy admiral who did not visit the Brunswick base, said New England has other Air Guard and Reserve bases that could be used to accommodate surveillance aircraft if needed in the future.

But commissioner Philip Coyle, one of two commissioners to vote against closing the base, pointed out that Brunswick had both strategic location and the ability to host the successor to the P-3 without new construction.

In Brunswick, there were tears as people watched on a big-screen television as the base closing commission voted 7-2 to close the base. The closing would take place over three to six years, state officials said.

If the commission’s vote stands, military personnel and the base’s 37 P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft and three C-130 Hercules transport planes would be moved, along with military personnel. More than 700 civilian workers would lose their jobs.

Base officials said they don’t expect any job losses to occur until aircraft start moving to Florida, which won’t happen for at least two or three years. The squadrons will move one at a time on a staggered schedule.

By shuttering the base, defense officials said there would be a one-time cost of $193 million that would be recovered within two years. Savings would total about $800 million over 20 years. Supporters claimed that the Defense Department’s cost savings estimate was flawed and that the actual savings would be just $26 million over 20 years.

Rick Tetrev, a former second-in-command at the base and the leader of the local task force, was pessimistic about redeveloping the base, saying he doubted there would ever be enough high-paying jobs to replace those that will be lost.

He noted that Cecil Field in Florida, which closed in the late 1990s, has largely failed at redevelopment. It now serves as a general aviation airport.

“If you’ve got someplace like Florida that can’t fill up and develop a base, how is Brunswick going to bring in anything that is viable?”