Tuesday could be pivotal to the region’s battle with the U.S. Postal Service on maintaining certain mail services in the Upper Peninsula and neighboring northern Wisconsin.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters has called U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and other postal officials to a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Peters chairs.

Peters, D-Michigan, wants the 10 a.m. Eastern time hearing, titled “Oversight of the United States Postal Service,” to address “mounting concerns about the postal service and timely mail delivery.”

While numerous USPS locations throughout the United States are being considered for changes, Peters has, understandably, taken particular interest in what USPS plans for the processing center in Kingsford.

The USPS has proposed converting that Kingsford facility from a processing and distribution center — the only one in the Upper Peninsula — to a local processing center. That move would mean all mail from the Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin would be sent to Green Bay, Wis., even if bound for another location within the region.

Tuesday also is the deadline for the public to file written comments on these plans online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-iron-mountain-mi.

The Peters hearing and the Kingsford facility review process the USPS launched in January provide opportunities to tell the postal service just how much the Upper Peninsula stands to lose in crucial mail services if this site is converted.

Already the USPS has cut mail truck pickup runs, which eliminated the ability to have USPS next-day mail service in most of the Upper Peninsula. That has affected timely delivery of medicines, business and industry parts and legally required water samples, local postal workers and other critics of the switch have said.

The public and government officials, from local to federal, have been vocal and consistent in their opposition to these changes.

The question is whether USPS will bother to listen.

Because we have to agree with U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman of Watersmeet that USPS officials at the April 1 public input meeting sounded like the decision already had been made.

They tried to promote the plan, which officials contend will invest $3 million to $5 million in the Kingsford facility as part of the conversion, including $1.25 million for a new “state-of-the-art” sorting machine and $2.5 million for modernization efforts and deferred maintenance. In the end, the investment could reach $6 million to $8 million, they said.

But even more telling, the USPS officials were steadfast there would be no loss of current services — a convenient claim, considering USPS already had dialed back on services.

And they admitted this new sorting system, supposedly more efficient, would send a letter mailed in Iron Mountain with another Iron Mountain address to Green Bay, then back to Iron Mountain.

Does that sound more efficient?

Though they acknowledged the postal service is not required to make a profit, USPS officials argue the service operates too much in the red, requiring such adjustments to get it closer to being more financially stable.

These proposed moves are part of a $40 billion nationwide investment strategy — the Delivering for America plan — to “upgrade and enhance” USPS’s postal processing, distribution and transportation network, the USPS stated. It would save USPS an estimated $1.1 million to $1.5 million annually at the Kingsford center, USPS officials said at the April 1 meeting.

Yet it again seems to be another case of the Upper Peninsula being treated as second class in terms of services provided compared with much of the rest of the United States.

And this isn’t a case of, say, getting internet and broadband connections throughout the region. U.P. residents can at least understand some of the challenges involved in establishing the infrastructure for that.

No, this is taking away a mail service long available in the Upper Peninsula and neighboring northern Wisconsin, altering a system residents and businesses have relied on, that may have figured into their decision to set up in the northwoods country. The USPS is telling the region it doesn’t merit that anymore, even though the savings probably account for only a sliver of the overall USPS costs.

Perhaps Peters’ hearing Tuesday will make a difference. But it’s difficult to be optimistic when the USPS Mail Processing Facility Review website shows of the 59 sites being considered, 34 already have a “decision to proceed” and only two — Buffalo, N.Y., and South Suburban, Ill.– ended with “not implemented.” Many proceeding are in fairly rural states such as North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Still, the region’s residents should take the time to protest the potential move, so the USPS can’t say most didn’t seem bothered by this loss.

Tuesday’s Senate committee hearing is set for 10 a.m. Eastern time in the Senate Dirksen Building, SD-342, at the Capitol in Washington. It can be livestreamed by going to https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/oversight-of-the-united-states-postal-service/, according to the news release from Peters’ office.