[CPEO-IRF] New Hampshire fears shipyard closure

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The report cited in the article excerpted and linked below is typical of
what states and localities generate in the run-up to base closure
decisions. It might stimulate additional anti-closure activity in New
Hampshire and Maine, but it won't have much, if any impact on the
decision whether to close the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Typically, such
reports exaggerate the damage and provide little direction for
overcoming it. 

Based on the experience at Mare Island Naval Shipyard (CA), closed in
the BRAC '93 round, it's clear that both downsizing (which happens for
years before closure) and closure cast adrift large numbers of well
paid, experienced blue-collar workers who have few opportunities for
comparable jobs in today's economy. At Mare Island, by the time closure
occurred, many of those workers were approaching retirement
qualification, and Navy management at the shipyard made extra efforts to
find ways to keep them employed until they completed the requisite
number of years. One method was training them to conduct cleanup as Navy
employees. That might not be the specific solution in New Hampshire and
Maine, but officials with a responsibility for dealing with the
potential closure should be exploring NOW the needs of such workers.

Overall, contamination at any shipyard is likely to be a major obstacle
to conversion to a non-maritime use. However, Portsmouth in 2005 has
done much more than Mare Island had in 1993 to identify and begin
addressing its environmental problems. Mare Island's reuse has therefore
been slow, but most people expect economic activity there to soon
outpace the level of Navy employment. Furthermore, in the Bay Area,
housing - which doesn't directly generate much long-term employment - is
often the highest and best use of former military property.

Contrary to the what this article says that the report's authors
concluded, the long-term prospects for shipyard conversion are actually
better than for most Air Force bases. The Navy, in its wisdom, knew
enough to locate most of its bases on the waterfront.

Lenny Siegel

***


State Report: Closing Shipyard would be a disaster
Unemployment, lost wages and job losses in the private sector

By DOUGLAS P. GUARINO
Foster's Daily Democrat (NH)
April 20, 2005 

PORTSMOUTH  -  The impact a Portsmouth Naval Shipyard closure would have
on the Granite State?s economy would go far beyond the immediate loss of
jobs at the shipyard itself, according to a new study released by a
state agency in Concord Tuesday.

Like previous economic impact reports released by the Seacoast Shipyard
Association, the study conducted by the Economic and Labor Market
Information Bureau notes that the total civilian payroll at the yard is
$318 million, $122 million of which is paid to New Hampshire residents.

But the new 42-page report adds that the decreased purchasing power
caused by those wage losses  -  combined with the loss of $5.8 million
in expenditures on local goods and services purchased by the shipyard in
Maine in New Hampshire  -  would cause New Hampshire to lose an
additional 1,219 jobs.

Wage and salary disbursements linked to secondary effect job decline in
New Hampshire would initially suffer losses of $71.5 million, expanding
to a loss of $106.3 million by 2021, the report says.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050420/NEWS23/50420088





-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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