Contaminants oozing out of the Castle Harbour dump mutated sea creatures growing there, Canadian scientists said yesterday.

The new research was conducted last summer by visiting scientists from the Atlantis mobile laboratory.

?Scallops were caged and exposed at different distances from the (Castle Harbour) dumpsite,? their findings said.

?Scallops were harvested after exposure for nearly two months, and several biomarkers were assessed?.

Scientists found that the closer the scallops were to the dump, the worse the mutations.

?Results showed that genotoxic effects (mutations) could be observed, and that this effect was directly related to the distance from the dump,? they said.

The scallops were affected by heavy metals seeping into Castle Harbour.

These metals originate from the waste metal of cars, fridges and other metal garbage dumped at the Castle Harbour site near the Bermuda International Airport.

The scientists suggested that more research was needed ?to identify the contaminants emanating from the dump ? to explain the effects observed in the molluscs.?

They also said the dump needed to be better contained.

?Any available containment technique that will minimise leaking of contaminants from the dump to the coastal waters should be implemented,? they said.

They said that there was also a lot of cadmium, a metal used in batteries, which was found in high levels in the water near the dump.

But scientists said that the high cadmium levels could be explained by the proximity of Hurricane Fabian a month before the scallops were placed at the dump, as it stirred up the ocean floor.