Base Closure Members to Visit Shipyard : Naval: The primary aim of the tour and interviews by half of the commission is to determine the military value of the Long Beach facility, an official says.

Half of the eight-member Base Closure and Realignment Commission comes to Long Beach today for a close-up look at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which has been targeted for closure by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry.

The delegation is scheduled to tour the dry-docks and talk to workers and administrators, but the primary aim of the visit is to determine the military value of the shipyard, commission spokesman Wade Nelson said Tuesday.

“Military value is the prime criterion the commissioners will use in deciding whether to accept the secretary’s recommendation,” Nelson said.

If the delegation decides that the shipyard is, as Navy officials have asserted, militarily expendable, the fight by workers and elected officials to save the shipyard may be lost, Long Beach officials conceded privately.

Proponents of keeping the base open, including four members of Congress, an assemblyman and Mayor Beverly O’Neill, will accompany the commissioners.

“They’re going to see a large waterfront complex that cannot be duplicated,” said Bill Gurzi, chairman of the Southern California Save Our Shipyard Committee (SOS), a grass-roots organization. “They’re going to see the capability to dry-dock any ship in the Navy, whether on a planned or emergency basis.”

A central theme in the campaign to keep the shipyard open has been that its 1,200-foot-long Dry-Dock No. 1 is the only such facility large enough to accommodate Navy aircraft carriers.

But Navy officials have said the shipyard is expendable because it does not have the capability to serve the Navy’s nuclear fleet. Local officials respond that the shipyard can do everything for a nuclear vessel except refuel it.

In a blow to the shipyard’s defenders, the government’s General Accounting Office found two weeks ago that the Navy had used “generally sound” reasoning in determining that the facility had become excess dock space for a fleet that has dropped from 450 to 340 ships in the last two years.

The tour of the shipyard will be followed by a regional hearing of the full commission on Friday in San Francisco, at which defenders of targeted California bases will speak. SOS is expected to bring a team of technical officials and national military experts to challenge the contention that the shipyard has outlived its usefulness.

The base closure commission, commonly referred to as BRAC, has closed 164 bases in five years of operation. A total of 250 bases have been closed by the Defense Department since 1988.

In the latest round of military cutbacks, 33 major military installations have been targeted by Perry. Defense officials say that closing the shipyard will save the federal government $1.9 billion over the next 20 years--the largest single saving in the latest round of proposed closings.

But Long Beach officials and shipyard workers say the facility is the only Naval shipyard that operates in the black, saving the federal government $74 million since 1988.

The Long Beach economy also would be devastated if the facility is closed, city officials said. A study paid for by the city said that the loss of the shipyard could cost the regional economy $757 million a year, as well as at least 10,000 jobs.

SOS leaders contend that Navy brass have been influenced by a lobbying campaign sponsored by the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce. Private shipyards in San Diego would like to see the Long Beach shipyard closed so that business would be boosted in their own facilities.

Toward that aim, the city of San Diego has reportedly accumulated a $200,000 “war chest” to reach its objective of closing the Long Beach Naval Shipyard.

The commission--which in prior rounds has rejected Defense Department targets in only 29 of 252 cases--will present its recommendations to President Clinton by July 1.