Base Cutting Plan's Long Shadow

Snapshots From 9 Communities Affected By Plans To Cut Bases

(CBS/AP) 
"It's incredible. We feel it the second they leave town on deployments — our profits go down," said Linda Byers, a marketing manager for Domino's Pizza. "We have lost a lot of our high-tech community. The military makes up for a lot of that."

In Tooele, Utah, news that Deseret Chemical Depot was on the list of military closure recommendations was no surprise. But here, that news was greeted happily.

The depot has been on track to be closed once its stockpile of hazardous chemicals is completely destroyed, but just when the closure will be completed remains a mystery.

"This is good news," said Col. Raymond Van Pelt, commander of the depot where chemical weapons have been incinerated since 1942.

Closing the base means the chemical weapons will be gone, meeting an international mandate. But when the final stage of the closure — the decontamination and cleanup of the nearly 20,000 acre facility — gets under way was still unclear.

The depot's only purpose is to dispose of chemical munitions including deadly sarin, VX and mustard chemical agents once used by the military. It is one of eight such facilities around the country and one of three recommended for closure.

In Kittery, Maine, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard supporters are preparing to do what they've done before: roll up their sleeves to get ready for the battle of removing the base from the list of those to be closed.

With help from a powerful congressional delegation, they saved the submarine repair yard after it was placed on the list in 1993 and again in 1995. But things are different this time.

Under President Reagan, the Navy boasted a submarine fleet of 100 vessels. That is projected to drop in half.

"We're headed for a submarine fleet of no more than 50," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute. "The handwriting is on the wall."

And circumstances have changed in the 12 years since Portsmouth was last placed on the list of proposed base closures. For example, the threats have become more diffuse, unlike during the Cold War when military efforts were oriented predominantly toward one part of the world.

"There's no question that the threat is coming from someplace other than Russia and Europe," said the Lexington Institute's Thompson.

In Houston, Texas, the base from which President Bush flew jets as a National Guardsman during the Vietnam War will lose all of its F-16s under the Pentagon's plan.

The proposal recommends retiring 15 F-16s belonging to the 147th Air National Guard at Ellington Field and closing its Army National Guard Reserve Center. But Ellington Field avoided the closings list.

"The good news is that Ellington Field will remain open," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "The discouraging news is they are recommending to take the F-16s and move them somewhere else. We don't think that makes a lot of sense."

DeLay's and Bush's home state could gain more than 9,000 military jobs even while losing four major installations and several smaller ones.