trash problem at the Airport dump.

And he blames most of the troubles with the contract on two things: a major increase in waste being trucked there after the closure of the Pembroke Dump; and a stubborn Planning Department.

The Royal Gazette revealed on Wednesday that while the cost of operating the Airport dump had skyrocketed, there had been little change in the way it was run.

Automobiles left at the dump were being shovelled into Castle Harbour, in many cases with tyres still on them and oils and other fluids leaving colourful plumes trailing through the water.

Mr. Richard Bell, the previous contractor, was paid about $4,000 a month to operate the Airport dump until 1993, while Mr. Hunt was receiving $30,167 monthly for his "special waste management programme'' contract with the Ministry of Works & Engineering.

Mr. Hunt, of Hunt's Sanitation and Excavating Services, won the contract through a competitive bid.

A Ministry official said the cost breakdowns for the contract were confidential, but management of the Airport dump was the largest single element.

Yesterday, Mr. Hunt, 51, said he received $17,250 a month to manage the Airport dump. The remaining money was paid to him for collecting batteries and shipping them to the US and for collecting aluminium ($11,317), and for trucking metal waste to the Airport from the Tynes Bay Incinerator ($1,600).

While the Airport portion of the contract had jumped substantially from what Mr. Bell received, Mr. Hunt said the huge volumes of waste now being trucked to the Airport still made that portion of his five-year contract a money loser.

"Nobody anticipated the increase in volumes at the Airport once Marsh Folly closed,'' he said. "It went from ten trucks a day to 170 trucks per day.

There is no way we can keep up with those kinds of volumes.'' A mountain of trash at the dump has built up partly because Mr. Hunt has refused to push large tanks, trees, and other items into the harbour, he said.

"If we don't watch it, Castle Harbour is going to look like your toilet before you flush it,'' he said.

He was not crushing the cars because he needed large, bulky items in front of the lighter trash to keep it from floating away, he said.

And while his responsibility began inside the gates of the dump, trash left outside after hours meant that his men could not even get to work without first cleaning it up. Mr. Hunt said the Ministry recently agreed to compensate him for some of that work, but he has yet to receive a cheque.

High volume of metal waste overwhelming Airport dump seven hours a day at the Airport dump himself, but he stopped after the Ministry began sending a labourer to the site daily to check up on it.

Now, the Ministry wants a uniformed man at the site to make sure loads that do not belong there do not get dumped. Mr. Hunt said he was willing to absorb the cost of the supervisor between 7.30 a.m. and 4 p.m., but wants extra pay from the Ministry for the man to work after hours.

Mr. Hunt said Ministry solid waste manager Mr. Bill Goodings and other officials had been working hard to resolve the situation. His harshest words were reserved for the Planning Department, which has refused him permission to drain and flatten cars and remove their batteries at the 3.5-acre Toddings Quarry site off Khyber Pass in Warwick, where he already has a waste operation.

His inability to use the site not only accounts for the cars not being drained before they are dumped, but for an additional $13,000 in monthly payments he is entitled to under the contract being held back, he said.

While Mr. Hunt holds an easement over part of the old Railway Trail which he uses to access his main warehouse at the Warwick site, Planning has refused him permission to use the same road to reach the quarry, he said. Mr. Hunt maintains that if he wished, he could use his warehouse with its present zoning to flatten and drain the cars. He instead wanted to move the work to the nearby quarry to keep it away from neighbours, he said.

In March, 1994, the Development Applications Board told Mr. Hunt he should reach the quarry "via a new industrial road from Middle Road.'' So he made a deal with Pembroke Hamilton Club Inc., offering to spend more than $100,000 to build a new access to Middle Road, which the club could also use, along the far eastern edge of PHC Field.

But after 18 months, Planning has not agreed to that, either, he said. Most recently, his planning agent and former Planning Director Mr. Erwin Adderley told him that the Department had "conveniently lost my file''.

Mr. Hunt said an average of only three cars a day would be flattened and drained at what was already an industrial site, and he did not understand why approval could not be given.

Noting his company had been handling waste in Bermuda since the early 1970s, Mr. Hunt produced a proposal he made to Public Works in 1983, which said the disposal method for metal wastes at the Airport was "environmentally unacceptable''.

"Castle Harbour Sound has been killed by waste debris from the metal site,'' he said. "The `boom' which surrounds the metal site controls debris from floating away on the surface, but does nothing to stop pollution from below.'' Today, "it's frustrating,'' he said. "I feel like closing the thing down.'' Works and Engineering Minister the Hon. Leonard Gibbons declined to comment directly on the story in the Gazette yesterday, but his Ministry issued a statement which said "facts contained in the report can be misleading''.

The statement cited the vast increase in waste volumes and Mr. Hunt's lack of Planning approval in Warwick.

"Notwithstanding these problems the great majority of vehicles disposed of at the Airport site are being crushed and oil and batteries removed before being placed in the water,'' the statement said.

Blocks made of concrete and incinerator ash were being used to build a lagoon to hold in metallic waste, and the Ministry was talking to an overseas contractor about having "cars and other vehicles shipped (to the US) by barge for recycling purposes'', the statement said.

DOWN IN THE DUMPS -- Mr. Nelson Hunt says Planning Department intransigence is largely responsible for problems at the Airport dump.