Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 13, 1991                   TAG: 9104130084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VA. MAY GAIN FROM CHENEY'S `HIT LIST'

By far the biggest impact on Virginia will come from the recommended closing of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, ship repair officials said.

Such a shutdown would bring substantial new business to Hampton Roads, but it would not replace the loss of at least 100 Navy ships over the next five years under Pentagon spending cuts that will trim the number of sailors by 25 percent.

No major Virginia military bases were on Cheney's list to close.

The Philadelphia closing, meantime, is not definite and will be vigorously fought by Pennsylvania's delegation to Congress.

"I hope and pray, along with everybody else down here, that they do close it," said Richard Goldbach, president of the South Tidewater Association of Ship Repairers and president of Metro Machine Corp. of Norfolk.

A draft Navy plan calls for dividing the Philadelphia yard's operations and 7,000 employees among several yards, including the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth and St. Juliens Creek Annex in Chesapeake.

The closing could mean more than 5,600 new jobs in Hampton Roads and $195 million in contracts, the Navy estimated.

But Goldbach said fleet cutbacks, even with the closing of Philadelphia, mean 20 percent less Navy work for private ship repairers over the next five years. That would be substantially worse if Philadelphia stays open, he said.

Elsewhere in the state, Rep. Herbert Bateman, R-Newport News, said the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren in King George County will get 1,000 new civilian workers as part of an overhaul of military research and development centers.

Bateman's district includes historic Fort Monroe, a small Army post in Hampton that has a largely ceremonial function, as well as the Army's Fort Eustis in Newport News and Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, home of the Tactical Air Command.

The Dahlgren base is one of the largest of 33 Navy engineering centers and laboratories nationwide. Dahlgren has about 3,000 employees.

The overhaul of the Navy centers also included realignment of functions at the Naval Sea Combat Systems Engineering Station in Norfolk and closing the Naval Mine Warfare Engineering Activity in Yorktown.

The Norfolk and Yorktown units are two of four Navy research laboratories in southeast Virginia that employ about 1,900 people.

Also closing in Virginia is the Woodbridge Research Facility, part of the Army's Adelphi, Md.-based Harry Diamond Laboratories. A spokeswoman said 90 employees would be affected.

An Army official said 164 personnel will leave Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia, while the duties of the Army Research Institute in Alexandria will be realigned, losing 57 workers.