According to Bermuda folklore (at least as reported by travel writers whose pens flow with purple ink) when the setting sun paints the western horizon gold, the vivid colours are reflections of the fortune in 17th century treasure lost on our reefs.

Archival evidence strongly suggests there are indeed a number of as yet undiscovered undersea treasure troves in our waters.

Of course, there is no tattered chart with “X”s conveniently marking the graves of ships from Spanish treasure fleets which came to grief on Bermuda’s treacherous reefline.

Only a relative handful of gold has been salvaged from Bermuda’s seas since the post-World War Two development of practical underwater breathing apparatus. The ongoing treasure hunt off our coast by marine archeologists and sport divers has been a decades-long, needle-in-a-submerged-haystack affair which has only been very sporadically successful.

In a similar vein, there are no latterday treasure maps identifying fabulous off-shore mineral deposits which hold the promise of instantly transforming the Island’s sluggish finances into a boomtown economy.

And there will be none produced in the foreseeable future, perhaps even for decades.

Speculation that such buried marine treasures in the form of rare and valuable metals even exist off Bermuda is based more on wishful thinking at this stage rather than any compelling geological evidence.

Nevertheless, since the American Pew Charitable Trusts launched its Blue Halo project — the creation of a vast no-go/no-take marine park around Bermuda where commercial activities including any future mining projects would be banned — there has been a raucous conversation taking place about a technology which is not so much unproven as it is next to non-existent.

The dispute between the more extreme opponents and proponents of the proposed marine reserve, which would cover most of the 200-mile Economic Exclusion Zone granted to Bermuda in 1996, has deteriorated into an unusually unproductive squabble.

Positions are fixed and immovable; dialogue amounts to a confused and confusing exchange of barbs; and facts are often conspicuous by their almost complete absence from this back-and-forth bickering.

Those promoting deep sea mining as the next emerging industry for Bermuda paint it as a get-rich-quick scheme, a cure to all of the Island’s current and future economic woes.

Dissenters grimly forecast an environmental Armageddon if mining is permitted in Bermuda’s waters, one that could doom our protective ring of coral reefs and literally drown the Island.

Depending on who you listen to, one side consists entirely of rapacious environmental rapists, the other is made up of clueless fish huggers

The truth, as is so often the case, lies between these two polarised extremes.

Former Premier Dr David Saul has assumed the grotesque, larger-than-life dimensions of a James Bond villain in the imaginations and conversations of Blue Halo champions for his advocacy of deep sea mining’s long-term potential.

But Dr Saul, a veteran conservationist as well as a businessman who has invested in marine salvage operations, has actually proposed the most sensible approach to the future of an Economic Exclusion Zone which came into existence under his leadership.

He has called for Bermuda to follow the lead of other countries, strengthening legislation that would protect the marine environment out to a distance of 200 miles while simultaneously seeking to attract foreign investment in our possible deep-ocean potential.

“We need to encourage them to search the tens of thousands of square miles around Bermuda, and then report their findings to the Government,” he said. “Such action should cost Bermuda little: no great demand for work permits, no drain of housing. But such action could bring in valuable foreign exchange. The Government could simply lease areas of the sea-floor (say plots of ten thousand square miles) but only for exploration with no permission to mine.

“If something valuable is found out there, the Bermuda Government will require detailed economic and environmental impact studies, and, with strict legal guidelines, could issue licences that would result in the people of Bermuda earning a major share of the profits on any such venture.”

Such a constructive approach would serve to both safeguard Bermuda’s environment while at the same time stimulating the economy.

Dr Saul has also underscored the fact that deep sea mining is in its infancy, the expensive and complex technology which may one day make it viable on a large-scale basis still largely in the research and development stage.

The fact is that like the hunt for Spanish gold, the quest for undersea natural resources around Bermuda will likely end up being another decades-long, needle-in-a-submerged-haystack affair, one with even less guarantee of ultimate success.

But Bermuda should be investigating its possibilities, not summarily removing off-shore mining from an increasingly short list of economic options.