Don't Fight It. It Might Just Work Out

To hear the politicians and local leaders tell it, closing a military base is about the worst thing you can do to a community. Ever since Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld listed the 180 or so installations he wants shut down next, local anger and fear have simmered. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman denounced the proposed mothballing of the naval submarine base at Groton as "cruel and unusual punishment," and state officials have churned out stacks of reports disputing the $1.6 billion the Pentagon claims it will save from the move. At Maine's Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, thousands of workers shouting "Take us off the list!" have demonstrated before visiting members of a commission reviewing Rumsfeld's recommendation to do away with the facility. Faced with the shuttering of his state's second largest employer, Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota Senator John Thune wants to attach an amendment to this year's defense bill to delay all base closings.

It's probably too late. The nine-member Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which has toured the country since May to hear pleas from closing opponents in affected communities, plans to vote this week to approve or amend Rumsfeld's choices. Then Bush and Congress must accept or reject the commission's final list by late fall.

Is closing a base necessarily the economic catastrophe communities fear? The evidence suggests that it isn't. The Defense Department estimates that the areas surrounding the 97 major bases closed during the past four rounds (in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995) have so far replaced almost 85% of the civilian jobs lost. An independent study released in May by the Government Accountability Office concluded that most of those communities "are faring well compared with average U.S. rates for unemployment and income growth."

Recovery takes time--five to 10 years in most cases--and there are hurdles and frustrations along the way. "But there is life after a base closure," says Tim Ford, executive director of the Association of Defense Communities, a nonprofit organization that has been advising cities and towns facing closings over the past 30 years. Here is how four communities have coped:

THE "AHA!" MOMENT

Austin, Texas, was at first staggered when the news arrived in spring 1991 that nearby Bergstrom Air Force Base was on the base-closings list. The 12th Air Force headquarters and two air wings at the 52-year-old facility would take almost 5,000 military and civilian jobs with them once they moved out, and that was projected to drain $339 million annually from the local economy.