Will we be ready for BRAC?

Still, O’Malley can handle this Excedrin-sized headache, which could top $2 billion, through a big package of tax increases and revenue from slot machines.

The governor can also handle demands from his core constituencies for an environmental ‘‘green fund” to clean up the Chesapeake Bay through a tax on developers. Health care reformers can be mollified through higher cigarette, beer, wine and liquor taxes to pay for expanded medical programs for more Marylanders.

And O’Malley can make a big dent in the state’s $40 billion backlog of badly needed transportation projects by hiking the state gasoline tax and doubling the share of the corporate income tax that goes to the transportation trust fund.

However, the governor may have only a partial answer for handling the 60,000 new jobs and 28,000 new households coming to Maryland as a result of the military base realignment and closure plan known as BRAC.

That’s because BRAC’s impact on Maryland is so massive, so diffuse and so long-lasting. Those 60,000 new jobs — enough to double the employment base of Cecil and Kent counties on the Eastern Shore — could give the state an enormous case of indigestion.

Just the transportation upgrades will cost $16.2 billion. That doesn’t count a Green Line extension of the Washington Metro that Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold wants to Fort Meade, which is expected to add 22,000 new jobs by 2011. That Metro add-on would cost another $3 billion.

Because BRAC will affect so many parts of Maryland, O’Malley can’t target state resources in one particular area. Harford and Anne Arundel counties will be most directly hit by these new arrivals at Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground, but neighboring counties will share the growth pains.

Cecil County, just across the Susquehanna River from Harford, could be radically altered. There’s a real danger this rural subdivision could experience a major loss of farmland and residential sprawl — the opposite of Smart Growth.

Cecil has been a sleepy Eastern Shore community but many of the 9,000 military, civilian and contractor jobs relocating to work at APG will make their homes in Cecil because of its rural charm and proximity to the base.

Unless the state offers assistance, local schools and Cecil’s community college could be overwhelmed. Development pressures on horse pastures and corn fields will be immense. Traffic congestion could become a way of life.

There’s also a serious environmental problem. Without state money to expand Cecil’s sewage capacity substantially, all those housing developments will be located outside the towns that have sewerage and water systems. This will pose a pollution danger that could threaten the Chesapeake Bay.

In the Washington area, Montgomery County will need state help in accommodating 4,200 jobs expected from BRAC, mainly in Bethesda where a new national military hospital, a replacement facility for Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, is planned.

Prince George’s County is expecting 3,400 jobs, including additional positions at Andrews Air Force Base. Andrews’ business-military-community alliance has a $9 billion plan for developing Camp Springs, if the state has money to make it happen.

Meanwhile, Baltimore city expects just 2,500 BRAC families to reside there, even though Baltimore is best suited to handle this major population influx. It’s a relatively short distance from both military bases. It has infrastructure in place, plenty of excess housing, all the cultural amenities new arrivals might want and plenty of water-view developments.

The state should encourage BRAC families to live in developed areas such as Baltimore. It would be a cost-effective and environmentally sensible thing to do.

First and foremost, though, the state needs to pour large sums into the MARC commuter rail line. Pressure must be placed on Amtrak to allow vastly expanded train service to Aberdeen from Baltimore and to Fort Meade from both Baltimore and Washington.

Clearly, Maryland’s interstates and local roads cannot handle all the tens of thousands of extra cars that will clog the entrances to Fort Meade and APG. The only viable, immediate relief valve is MARC.

An upgraded MARC system would ease highway and interstate congestion and encourage more BRAC arrivals to live near MARC train stations where development already exists.

This is a step O’Malley could take immediately, if he can find the money in a very difficult financial period in Maryland history. BRAC offers a historic opportunity for this state — welcoming tens of thousands of professionals, scientists and engineers and their families — but it also offers a huge challenge at a time when state government already has a full plate of difficult fiscal dilemmas to resolve.

Barry Rascovar is a communications consultant. His Wednesday morning commentaries can be heard on WYPR, 88.1 FM. His e-mail address is brascovar@hotmail.com.