SOUTHWEST HARBOR – Radios crackled, the red emergency telephone rang and the crew kept a weather eye on computer screens and charts Wednesday afternoon inside the operations center at the Coast Guard Sector Field Office Southwest Harbor.

It’s a busy place that is staffed 24 hours a day in case the Coast Guard needs to mobilize for a search and rescue or other type of emergency procedure.

But the humming operations nerve center will go quiet in June when the Coast Guard completes the next step of its local restructuring process and moves 22 staff positions and the operations center that serves the coast of Maine from Port Clyde to the Canadian border to Coast Guard Sector Northern New England in South Portland.

“Effectively the Coast Guard services that get provided from this office will still get provided,” U.S. Coast Guard Captain Stephen Garrity, commanding officer of Sector Northern New England, said. “All units are still there – we’re removing one operational component.”

Emergency radio and telephone communication will be routed to South Portland and local users should not notice any lags in Coast Guard response time, officials said.

“The same level of services will always be intact,” Garrity said. “A lot of the local knowledge is remaining right here.”

Though Southwest Harbor’s top-dog position of group commander will cease to exist after the move, the Search and Rescue, Ice Breaking and Aids to Navigation teams will remain based in the Coast Guard’s cluster of brick buildings perched overlooking Southwest Harbor. Staffing levels for these operational areas will not be decreased, officials said.

The move will mean about a 25 percent decrease in staffing levels at the field office from 100 positions to 78.

Town Manager Ken Minier said that he doesn’t foresee that the change will significantly impact Southwest Harbor.

“Coast Guard housing is still going to be here,” he said. “It doesn’t look to me like it’s going to have a tremendous affect on the town … only time will tell.”

The restructuring is part of a nationwide effort to streamline and consolidate Coast Guard services, officials said.

“We used to have 90 shore-side commands,” Garrity said. “We’ve compressed that into 35 … Each area has a captain in charge. That enables you to effectively and efficiently do your job.”

Garrity will remain stationed in South Portland, but said he plans to make monthly trips Down East to check in with the crews at Southwest Harbor. The stations at Eastport, Jonesport, Rockland, Boothbay Harbor, Portsmouth Harbor and Burlington, Vt., also will fall under his command.

Though Garrity ultimately will be responsible for the region with its eight stations, six vessels, 5,000 miles of coastline and 11,000 square nautical miles of water, other commanding officers will head the different stations and report to him.

“You really need the operational unity when you have one person with all the titles and all the equipment,” the captain said. “Under the new construct, I’ll be able to … marshal the exact right resources to patrol an event or control it. It’s a great advantage to me. I don’t have to go ‘Mother May I?’ anymore.”

The streamlining of the service is in part a reaction to the catastrophes of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina, officials said.

“In Katrina, we were flexible and we could respond,” Robert Burchell, group commander of Sector Field Office Southwest Harbor said.

The same was true after the New York City terrorist attacks, according to Garrity.

“The Coast Guard was able to perform that day very successfully, moving thousands and thousands of people from lower Manhattan,” the captain said.

Congressman Michael Michaud released a statement late Wednesday afternoon that gave his endorsement for the planned Coast Guard resource consolidation.

“I am pleased that the operational center for the Northeast region will remain in Maine,” Michaud said. “With the demands of homeland security and the enormous Maine coastline, it is critical that we ensure that the Coast Guard has adequate resources and uses them in the most efficient manner for the good of our coastal communities.”