BNAS training center threatened
The plan to open military training center on 75 acres at the Brunswick Naval Air Station when it closes in 2011 is being threatened by funding problems.
Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are asking Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter to coordinate funding for the joint National Guard and Marine Corps reservists training center, according to The Times Record in Brunswick. Funding approval for the center was made before the Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommended closing BNAS and its annex in Topsham, which currently houses Marine reservists. The senators wrote a letter to Winter asking him to push back funding for the Marine Corps' portion of the center from 2010 to 2012 and allow reservists to stay at the Topsham Annex past the base closure deadline. If the Marine Corps' funding isn't aligned to correspond with the National Guard's funding, the project could fall through, Maine Army National Guard Lt. Col. Dwaine Drummond told the paper.
The National Guard is responsible for paying for $25 million of the center, or about two-thirds of the project budget, with the Marine Corps paying for the rest, according to Drummond.
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