Fleet changes may lower shipyard's value

By TOM BELL, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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Staff photo by Gregory Rec The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery is at risk for closure because the type of submarine it is equipped to work on is being phased out.

SELECTION CRITERIA THE DEPARTMENT of Defense is using eight criteria to decide which bases to recommend for closure, reduction or expansion. The first four, which define military value, receive the most weight. They are: 1. The current and future mission capabilities and the impact on operational readiness of the total force of the Department of Defense, including the impact on joint war fighting, training and readiness. 2. The availability and condition of land, facilities and associated airspace (including training areas suitable for maneuver by ground, naval, or air forces throughout a variety of climate and terrain areas and staging areas for the use of the Armed Forces in homeland defense missions) at both existing and potential receiving locations. 3. The ability to accommodate contingency, mobilization, surge and future total force requirements at both existing and potential receiving locations to support operations and training. 4. The cost of operations and the manpower implications. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS: 5. The extent and timing of potential costs and savings, including the number of years beginning with the date of completion of the closure or realignment until the savings exceed the costs. 6. The economic impact on communities in the vicinity of military installations. 7. The ability of the infrastructure of both existing and potential receiving communities to support forces, missions and personnel. 8. The environmental impact, including the impact of costs related to potential environmental restoration, waste management and environmental compliance activities. Source: Department of Defense memo, Jan. 4, 2005 In Depth: Base Closings Special section on how upcoming military base closures could affect Maine features a blog covering news and analysis from around the country. The section also keeps an archive of local news stories about the Brunswick Naval Air Station and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Readers also can add their comments to selected stories and vote in an online survey. Sign up for Blog Updates to be delivered to your e-mail each time the section is updated. To top of story

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery is the more vulnerable of Maine's two military bases, according to the consensus of defense experts.

It's the Navy's lead maintenance shipyard for the Los Angeles class nuclear-powered submarine, a fast and nimble boat that forms the bulk of the Navy's nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet. The shipyard holds the record for overhauling these submarines under budget and ahead of schedule.

But the fleet is shrinking. At the height of the Cold War, the United States had more than 100 submarines. It now has 54, and the Navy recently announced plans to reduce its attack submarine fleet to 41.

"It's hard to argue that the prospect for the nuclear sub force is bright," said Jay Korman, an analyst with DFI International, a defense industry research and consulting firm. "We are on a glide path for a smaller submarine fleet."

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is a specialty yard, currently equipped to work on smaller attack submarines rather than the much larger ballistic-missile submarines. The nation's other three naval shipyards work on attack submarines, ballistic-missile submarines and ships.

Two - the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., and the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii - serve the Pacific Fleet. This fleet is strategically more important than the Atlantic Fleet because of potential threats from North Korea and China.

Also, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is protected from being closed because it is the only yard licensed to dispose of the nuclear waste retrieved from decommissioned submarines.

If the Pentagon closes a shipyard, analysts say, it's more likely to be one on the East Coast, either Portsmouth Naval Shipyard or Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia.

While the Maine shipyard is isolated from other military facilities, the Virginia shipyard is in the center of one of the largest concentrations of military power in the world. It is the Navy's most multifaceted shipyard. It services the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, which is based next door at the Norfolk Naval Base, the world's largest naval base.

The region is home to nine major military installations and several large private shipyards that employ tens of thousands of people and receive military contracts.

Norfolk Naval Shipyard promotes itself as a full-service shipyard. "You can bring any job - no matter the size - to NNSY because of its location and layout," the shipyard says on its official Navy Web site. Its motto: "Service to the Fleet Under Four Flags."

But even the concept of a government-owned shipyard is under attack from those who argue that it's cheaper to farm out submarine overhauls to private shipyards. And as they build fewer Navy ships, private shipyards will turn toward the type of overhaul and maintenance work that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the other Navy shipyards do.

Private shipyards are putting enormous political pressure on Congress and the Bush administration to take over that work, said Bill McDonough, a former commander at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and a leader of the effort to keep it open.

He said Navy shipyards can perform the work cheaper and more quickly than private yards. But he believes the concept of a government-run shipyard runs counter to the goals of ideologues in Washington

"Our competition is the private sector," he said. "There is no reason in the world to close the shipyard other than a political decision to suck work out and give it to another sector."

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard also faces a problem of changing technology. It specializes in refueling the older Los Angeles class submarines, a two-year process that requires removing the reactor. But submarines that never need refueling are gradually replacing these older submarines.

The USS Honolulu, commissioned in 1985, is the Navy's last submarine that will need refueling, a job scheduled for around 2007, said John Pike, a military scholar at GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Va.

When that job is finished, the Maine shipyard will lose much of its military value, he said.

When he looks at the nation's other bases, he said, it's hard to figure how the military could justify closing them. But in the Kittery shipyard's case, he said, he can see why: The base is becoming obsolete.

"It looks like Portsmouth may be road kill," he said.

The official Navy view is that the nation's four naval shipyards - along with private shipyards - can operate together as "one shipyard."

The concept allows the Navy to be more efficient with its shipyards and gives it more flexibility to move work around the yards where and when it's needed, said Shirley Copeland, a spokesperson for the Naval Sea Systems Command

But there is only so much work to go around. In 1987, there were 594 ships. There are now 288 ships, a decline of more than 50 percent.

"How big a navy are we going to have? That's the most important question," said Art Collins, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, a planning agency for communities in the Norfolk region.

He said the people who work on ships and submarines in Maine and Virginia share the same fate.

"If we are going to have a 250-ship navy, he said, "then we are both in trouble."

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