A private overseas foundation has offered to work with local charities to maintain the Island's beaches after visitors were shocked at the appearance of one local beach.

Bruce M. Brown and his family visited Bermuda last week and was surprised to find the restroom facilities and beach area at Shelly Bay in poor condition.

In a letter to The Royal Gazette he questioned civic pride and wrote: "We were stunned to find none of the public restrooms operable. Indeed two of the four units have had all plumbing and electric equipment stolen, water was turned off in the other two and the conditions indescribably putrid.

"Once in the water we were equally surprised and disappointed to find ourselves swimming amidst hundreds of wine bottles - only the most prominent among other types of debris."

Brown, the founding trustee of the HBE Foundation located in Pennsylvania, challenged the Parks Department to promptly restore the restrooms and to maintain them regularly.

He has offered to work with any charity that contacts him and is willing to organise an underwater cleanup.

Anita Minors, the proprietor of Shantia's Family Cafe along with the attached bathroom facilities, said that the bathrooms were probably the cleanest anyone could find at any beach or park.

Mrs. Minors explained that a pipe broke midweek which would be the day before Mr. Brown's visit to the facility.

Alan-Jay Minors, her husband, said he fixed the pipe but he turned on the water too soon, damaging the pipe again. He shut down the well system and locked the bathrooms until further repairs could be made.

However, Mrs. Minors said people get into the bathroom and use them anyway.

Last week, Mrs. Minors noticed that people had urinated on the floor. She also had to clean faeces off the floor.

"Nobody wants to clean them but we have to," she said. "I wouldn't hire anybody to do it."

Presently, the bathrooms are locked and under repair, but she said that they are usually in a `pretty decent' state when they are open.

Mrs. Minors explained that the water pipes to the bathrooms are old and often break down.

Another pipe broke over the holiday weekend but the Minors permitted beach patrons use the bathrooms in the restaurant.

"I was letting everybody use the two bathrooms in the restaurant. One is for staff and one is for guests but I was letting everybody use both," Mrs. Minors said.

Mr. Minors said, "I wish people would ask something instead of complaining. They must have been locked for a reason."

Mr. Brown said the restaurant was closed when they first arrived at the beach. When he later went to buy lunch for his family the subject of bathrooms never came up and he did not know he and his family could use the facilities there, he said.

Candy Foggo, Director of Parks, said her department was not responsible for the restrooms at Shelly Bay.

The restrooms accompany the lease of that facility, she said.

Ms Foggo explained the department maintains the beaches on a regular basis, raking them, emptying trash cans and removing surface trash off of the beach.

However, late this week about nine trash cans located off the beach and in the park area were full and some cans were flanked by bags of trash. The lawn area outside of the snack bar, off the beach and around the playground was littered with trash that may have escaped from the overflowing trash cans or bags of trash around them.

"Because of the public holiday on Monday the beach received excessive use and the bad weather over the past few days has hampered the clean-up efforts. We are doing the best that we can with the resources we have."

Ms Foggo asked for the public's help in keeping the Island clean.

"We are responsible for all parks. We can't be everywhere at once," she said. "We do our part and ask that the general public do theirs."

Keep Bermuda Beautiful president Susan Amos was surprised to learn about Mr. Brown's complaint.

She said quite a few trash bags of debris were removed from the Shelly Bay Beach area during KBB's recent National Clean-up week. Like Ms. Foggo, she asked for the public's assistance in keeping the beaches clean. KBB organises a marine clean-up once a year and has scheduled one for September 20, she said.

During a marine clean-up, volunteers will collect trash in marine areas throughout the Island. "It's up to volunteers to go into the sea... we will definitely try to point our volunteer groups toward Shelly Bay this year."