Base Closure Panel Gets an Earful

To Glenn Gauvin, it made no sense to close the nation’s oldest military shipyard. So Gauvin, 41, joined more than 3,000 other supporters of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on Wednesday to press their case before an independent review panel.

Many made the 90-minute trip to Boston in a caravan of about 50 school buses. In yellow “Save Our Shipyard” T-shirts, the Portsmouth contingent filled nearly every seat in a cavernous convention center ballroom here.

“We’ve got the lowest cost per man-hour, the highest on-time delivery and we just received a star status award,” said Gauvin, a mechanical inspector at the Kittery, Maine, facility for the last 13 years.

“Why are they closing it?” Gauvin asked. “You tell me. That is why we are here.”

For eight hours, five members of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission listened as delegates from military bases across New England argued that their installations should not be closed. The speakers included five governors, 10 U.S. senators, nine congressmen and a plethora of local officials from five states affected by the Pentagon’s decision to streamline domestic military operations.

Thousands of men and women whose lives are directly tied to the eight imperiled bases also seized the opportunity to air their views.

“I’ve lived by the New London Submarine Base [in Groton, Conn.] almost all my life,” said retired Coast Guard officer James Sheehan, 73. “It plays an important part, militarily, in our country’s defense.”

By proposing to close the Connecticut submarine facility and consolidate undersea operations in Kings Bay, Ga., “it seems to me they are putting too many apples in one cart,” Sheehan said. “They want to put it all down there, and my God, if you set off one atomic bomb, you’d lose everything.”

From Anchorage to Buffalo, meetings in nine other regions where bases are to be closed brought out similar crowds in recent weeks. A hearing two weeks ago in South Dakota drew more than 7,500 participants.

The 19 public sessions carry no legal weight. Commission Chairman Anthony J. Principi said the meetings were intended to gather information and “to assure everyone that public input is taken into consideration.”

Over and over, the commissioners heard testimony that the decision to close the bases was arbitrary and based on flawed data. Lawmakers and private citizens alike also contended that closing the facilities would weaken national and regional security without necessarily saving the huge amounts of money foreseen by the Pentagon. Some officials said the costs of closing the bases could outweigh any possible benefits, with states and municipalities picking up the price of environmental cleanups.

“We have struggled, mightily, to reconcile [this decision] with common sense,” M. Jodi Rell, the Republican governor of Connecticut, said of the determination to close the sprawling submarine base on the Thames River. About 7,500 military personnel are employed at the New London submarine facility, along with 650 reservists and several thousand civilian workers and contractors.

The Connecticut base represents the largest loss of jobs of any of the 33 bases scheduled to be closed nationwide. Another 29 will be “realigned” -- pared down or consolidated.

“Make no mistake, it is wrong,” Rell said. “Closing the Navy’s oldest, biggest and best submarine base is just wrong -- it is wrong for the Navy, it is wrong for the nation and it is wrong for Connecticut.”

Governors and congressional delegations from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine made similar pleas on behalf of installations in their states. All argued that the bases marked for closure carried unique military value with special significance in wartime.

“These are new and dangerous times for our nation,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.). “Closing this base [New London] would put the Navy in a virtual straitjacket.”

Speaker after speaker also accused the Department of Defense of relying on incomplete and inaccurate data in drawing up its list of bases to be closed.

“Who has ever heard of ‘the Pentagon made a mistake?’ ” asked Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. He said neither he nor the National Guard adjutant general in Massachusetts was consulted about the possible shutdown of Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, or a smaller facility, the Boston Planning Yard.

Gov. John Lynch of New Hampshire, a Democrat, said job losses for his state were not taken into account because the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was in Maine -- two miles from the New Hampshire border.

“The Department of Defense completely ignored the impact on the state of New Hampshire,” Lynch said.

He drew laughter as he added: “It actually stated that New Hampshire was in for a windfall with a gain of four jobs.”

Commissioners will travel next to Baltimore, making their way across the country through New Orleans and San Antonio before concluding their public hearings in Los Angeles and San Diego.

The commission must present its recommendations to President Bush by Sept. 8.

Bush may either forward the report to Congress or send it back to the commission with his own recommendations.

In that case, the panel would have to resubmit its report by Oct. 20, and the president would have to send it to Congress by Nov. 7.

Congress would then have 45 days after it receives the report to approve or reject it, but it cannot change it.