The closure of any one of the larger military bases in San Diego County might not have the devastating economic impact predicted by many critics of the latest round of Base Realignment and Closure being conducted by the Department of Defense, local economists said recently.

The BRAC process, as it is called, has been shrouded in secrecy, so loose talk about this base or that base being eliminated is nothing more than conjecture. But a survey conducted by the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce tabulated the contribution that each of the major local installations makes to the county's economy, making it possible to estimate some economic impacts of a local base closure.

Economists interviewed by the North County Times all said that, while a major base closure might send a shudder through nearby communities and probably would produce some short-term negative economic effects, those effects would not last and probably would not be severe.

"The loss of (military personnel) payroll is a concern for the economy, of course," said Ryan Singer, research economist for the Economic Research Bureau.

"But I can't think of a segment of the economy that would be particularly hard-hit by a relatively small reduction of military personnel in the county," he said.

Not every voice agreed with that assessment, however. U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham said the economists' view underestimates what he called the "domino effect," an unraveling of the interconnected local military bases that he thinks ultimately would take billions of dollars annually out of San Diego's economy.

Alan Gin, a University of San Diego economics professor who tracks the local economy for the Burnham-Moores Real Estate Institute at the school, held the middle ground but leaned somewhat in the same direction as Singer.

"Initially, there would be some short-term economic pain," Gin said, "because closing a large base would take a lot of payroll out of the county. Military personnel, through the money they spend, are one of the things that help out the economy of the county, but in the long term we would adjust."

Cunningham is a bit less sanguine.

"It depends on which base you're talking about," he said.

"When I look at communities elsewhere that have had bases closed, I cannot think of one that benefited a great deal," he said.

Closing a base involves much more than just moving the people out and padlocking the gate. Many bases must go through expensive environmental cleanups before being usable to the public.

The federal government has no obligation to obey the same set of environmental protection rules on military installations that private companies located just outside the fence must follow. As a result, many bases include areas, such as fuel depots and live-fire ranges, where pollutants and dangerous chemicals permeate the ground.

"Quite often, it costs more to close those bases than to keep them open because of the environmental cleanup costs; the military economy is adversely affected by that," Cunningham said.

Cleanup costs are high on everybody's list of negative consequences of a base closure. But cleanup activity probably would pour federal money into the local economy by creating cleanup jobs, temporarily replacing lost military pay and lost contracts for civilian companies that provide goods and services to the bases now. Actual cleanup costs vary from base to base and require congressional funding.

More readily measurable are the economic costs of lost federal dollars: military payroll, military tenants in civilian housing, contracts for base support services and federal school aid that compensates local school districts for educating the children of military families.

There are more than 90,000 military personnel in San Diego County. As large as that number sounds, it represents only about 6 percent of a total county work force that exceeds nearly 1.5 million. Closing a base the size of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar would, over a period of two or more years, transfer about 0.5 percent of the work force out of the county.

In fact, figures published by the Economic Research Bureau, an arm of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, show that San Diego County already is trimming its reliance on military spending for economic stability. Although the absolute number of dollars of military spending has risen locally in recent years, since 1993 the percentage of the gross regional product, the total of all goods and services in the local economy, attributable to military spending has declined from a high of about 15 percent to around 8 percent today.

"Remember, even if we had a reduction in active duty personnel on the order of 10,000 people (approximately the number stationed at Miramar), the county receives an influx of about 20,000 new people every year from other parts of the country or the world, and we grow by about 30,000 people every year through natural increase," Singer said. Natural increase is the growth of a population because the number of births exceeds the number of deaths in the community.

Robert Brown, chairman of the department of economics at Cal State San Marcos, said the potential for economic pain depends on what bases are affected.

"Pendleton is about 40,000 military personnel, and maybe another 20,000 civilian jobs that depend on Pendleton," he said. "The military folks are predominantly from outside the area, so if you were to close it and they exit, they take with them all that consumer spending, and there would be some multiplier effect."

A multiplier effect is a term economists use to describe consumer spending behavior. When a dollar is spent, some portion of it is spent again by the person who receives it, and then a smaller portion is spent yet again by the person who is third in line, and so on. In the end, adding up all the partial respending by successive recipients yields a spending total that is some multiple of the original dollar.

"But you have to ask yourself, what is the next best use of that land?" Brown said. "Maybe you take out a lot of people, but something will replace the military that's leaving, and it may be that the something will outweigh the military leaving."

Total military payroll in the county is nearly $5 billion annually. That's almost half of all of the dollars spent locally by the Department of Defense. Another $4 billion or so is spent on defense contracts. Direct base expenditures are less than $1.5 billion per year.

Closure of a major military installation often leads to severe distortion of real estate markets, which can result in depressed housing prices, home construction disruptions and empty rental units, but that is far less likely in San Diego County than elsewhere. A review by local business interests in Beaufort County, S.C., decided that closing Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station would strip the county of 25 percent of its payroll dollars and would result in zero new home construction for between five and 10 years.

San Diego County's housing market, however, is characterized by a shortage of available homes and by stratospheric home prices that may well be beyond the ability of most military personnel to pay. The impact of a major base closing, therefore, could have a negligible effect on home prices or construction starts, and might even deliver a boon if it were to make more land available for development.

Rental housing, particularly apartment developments near military bases, could be affected more than the home market by a base closure.

"It's going to be painful for the rental market," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

"Rental rates might be cut, more concessions might be offered to get people to move in," he said.

Essentially, those effects were seen in rental units in Oceanside when large numbers of Marines were deployed to the Middle East for the Iraq war. But Kyser said it is not clear that the market would be affected.

Cunningham said that, although his opposition to base closings rested in part on his belief that the military must be more prepared for war, the economic concern for affected localities also is important.

"I know the economist from the chamber said the impact might be minimal," Cunningham said.

"But the entire congressional delegation from San Diego, including both U.S. senators, have drawn the same line" opposing closure, he added. "Generally, it has not been a good picture for the community when bases close," he said.

Cunningham indicated that one potential consequence of closing a major installation might be a reduction in the relevance of another base in the area. For example, he said, closing Miramar could weaken arguments for keeping three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers at North Island in Coronado. If the carriers were moved elsewhere, an argument could be made for moving the maintenance facility at North Island to Ogden, Utah. That, in turn, might raise questions about the rationale for keeping the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command at Point Loma.

According to the Economic Research Bureau, in 2002 some 35,000 children of military personnel were students in San Diego County schools, potentially bringing the school systems in the county more than $21 million in federal impact payments.

Those payments are meant to offset the increased cost of accommodating an increased number of students whose parents often do not pay local real estate taxes, which are a source of funding for schools.

About 32,000 military personnel live in civilian housing, about 35 percent of all military personnel in the county.

Of companies in the county surveyed by the research bureau, 37 percent reported doing some work for the military, with contracts totaling as high as $1.6 billion annually. In all, nearly 45,000 employees work for those companies, the research bureau found.

"Generally, it has not been a good picture for the community when a base closes," Cunningham said. "That's why one thing we recommended to the BRAC Commission was that they take a much closer look at the cost to the community."

The bases in San Diego County have unique places in the military's inventory of facilities, he said. "Take Miramar —— a place like that, we have pilots fly from the East Coast and the Midwest to train there because of the weather."

And Camp Pendleton? "That's a great barrier between us and Los Angeles," Cunningham said.

Contact staff writer Edmond Jacoby at (760) 739-6675 or ejacoby@nctimes.com.