Klemm was critical of statements made to the commission by Adm. Robert Willard, vice chief of Naval operations.

"This directly affects operation readiness," Klemm said. "I’m surprised Admiral Willard tried to mislead the commission into thinking that overtime would get work done, but forgot to mention that he will need dry docks to do the work in."

The Pentagon, citing a conflict of interest, forbade Klemm from testifying at the July 6 BRAC hearings in Boston. The Department of Defense’s attorneys claimed Klemm’s involvement in the base-closure process precluded him from testifying on behalf of any facility on the closure list.

New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg was outraged at the Pentagon’s actions. Gregg said that Klemm’s testimony would have been "devastating to the Navy case, because of his expertise and because of the fact that his points went to all the criteria ... and, refuted, basically, the Navy position on all these criteria points, and showed substantial deviation (from the criteria)."

However, the prepared statement Klemm was going to make at the Boston hearing was obtained and subsequently printed in the Portsmouth Herald (read it online here).

Although not commenting on his involvement in the BRAC process, Klemm warned that Portsmouth’s closure would eliminate surge capacity in the Navy shipyards, because of the loss of skilled workers.

He also described how Portsmouth is the lead shipyard in the improvement of submarine maintenance processes, improvements that are then extended to the Navy’s other three shipyards. These improvements are, in part, a product of the culture of the work force.

"That culture cannot be exported or replicated, it is imbedded in the generations of people who work at this facility," Klemm testified. "Therefore, the loss of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard equates to an irreplaceable loss of the culture and skill sets of innovation and efficiency."

Klemm further warned that the Navy’s three remaining shipyards - in Norfolk, Va., Puget Sound, Wash., and Pearl Harbor in Hawaii - do not have the capacity nor the resources needed to perform submarine maintenance activities within the prescribed periods of the service lives of the submarines in the fleet.

"Faced with the inability to accomplish this work, the Navy will have to keep submarines pierside in non-operational status until skilled artisans and dry docks become available or schedule them for inactivation." He warned that this will result in a reduction of the size of the submarine fleet "through a backlog of maintenance actions over the next five years."

This was not the first time Klemm had mentioned the negative consequences of closing the Portsmouth yard. He had warned of the problems inherent in closing Portsmouth during the BRAC process itself.

According to the minutes of the Nov. 18, 2004, meeting of the Pentagon’s Industrial Joint Cross Service Group, Klemm said that calculations had determined that closing Portsmouth would leave 1.4 million labor hours of workload that could not be absorbed by the other three shipyards. He stated that these calculations, based on the 2005 20-year force structure plan, "preclude the closure of Portsmouth, unless its three dry docks are replicated at another shipyard."

Klemm said the chairman of the IJCSG, Michael Wynn, then-acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, asked Klemm’s subgroup to perform additional analysis to see if it was possible to replicate Portsmouth’s workload at other shipyards before making a final decision on the merits of closing it. But there is no evidence that the additional analysis was ever completed and submitted to the IJCSG; or that the Pentagon ever figured out how to include Portsmouth’s efficiency in its "military value calculations," according to Klemm. Klemm raised the issue in another IJCSG meeting on Jan. 6, 2005, the testimony on the BRAC site said.

Yet, the IJCSG decided to put Portsmouth on the closure list, without any proposal to replicate its three dry docks at the remaining shipyards, Klemm said. Thus, it will be the "justifying" plan to cut the Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet in the future, according to Klemm.

By Shir Haberman
shaberman@seacoastonline.com

Deadline near for Save Our Shipyard petitions

PORTSMOUTH - It now appears that neither of the two commissioners who have not yet visited the Portsmouth shipyard - former Utah Congressman James Hansen and the former commander of U.S. Southern Command, retired Army Gen. James Hill - will make it here before the Aug. 5 deadline for commission visits to bases recommended for closure and realignment.

However, several events are scheduled for the weeks before the commission ends its deliberations and prepares its own list for the president on Aug. 22-23.

Residents are being urged to deliver their Save Our Shipyard petitions to the following locations on or before Aug. 3 at 3 p.m.

• Mayor’s office, 1 Junkins Ave., Portsmouth.

• York Chamber of Commerce, Route 1, York, Maine.

• Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, Market Street Extension, Portsmouth.

• The home of Save Our Shipyard director Capt. William McDonough, 132 Rogers Road, Kittery, Maine.

• SOS Task Force Meeting, Kittery Town Hall, Rogers Road, Kittery, Maine.

Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., will attend the Aug. 3, SOS meeting at 3:30 p.m. to update the task force on the status of the fight to save the shipyard. U.S. Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., will join Portsmouth Mayor Evelyn Sirrell for a press conference on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 2 p.m., to accept the letters and petitions the mayor has collected on behalf of the shipyard, which he will deliver to Washington.

A shipyard appreciation picnic has been scheduled at Pease International Tradeport for Saturday, Aug. 13, from 2 to 5 p.m.

- Shir Haberman

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