US scientists who were refused permission to do underwater research this month because of fears they could harm marine mammals returned to the Island yesterday to try to convince Government to think again.

Government turned down an application from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York because of concern the seismic operations could harm the hearing of whales and dolphins, possibly leading to them being stranded on beaches.

The scientists had arrived in Bermuda without Government giving permission for the work and they were turned away.

Environment Permanent Secretary Brian Rowlinson said yesterday Government will probably bring in independent experts to assess the application when it is formally re-submitted at a later date.

James Yoder, the director of the National Science Foundation, which is supporting the research, said the scientists had learned that the US government approval they did have did not mean they would get an automatic go-ahead in other countries.

He said a proposal had been put to the Mammal Conservation Unit at the US government's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and it had concluded the research could disturb mammals, but would not cause long-term harm.

The research involves firing airguns at the ocean floor to monitor the sound signal returned to try to find out what part thermal and chemical reactions had to do with changes to the sea floor around the Bermuda Rise.

After the meeting yesterday, which involved two other scientists from Lamont-Doherty, officials of the Departments of Environment and Marine Conservation, and Jill Esposito, the consular section chief of US Consulate General, Mr. Yoder said he was hopeful Bermuda will approve a new application to do the research later.

"There were no decisions, and we didn't expect any decisions," he told The Royal Gazette.

"We simply wanted to indicate that we were very interested to have the project in the future and to talk about the process we have to go through to demonstrate the safety of the operations and to make sure that the people here know the information was available to them and to offer to send whatever they wanted to make a decision."

When asked to address concerns the research could harm the hearing of dolphins and whales, he said: "It's a tough one to address.

"Sound sources on the ocean are potentially harmful or disturbing to marine mammals.

"When we want to use strong sounds like seismic instrumentation, we have to have an environmental assessment done to the Marine Mammal Conservation Unit.

"They evaluate it and look to see whether there is a chance of harming or disturbing marine mammals.

"Their assessment was that there was a possibility of disturbing, but not harming them. Disturbance can mean as little as the mammal changing course.

"If it is their evaluation that there is no long term harm to an individual mammal or a population, they will issue an incidental harassment authorisation.

"MMCU asked us to establish a group to watch the beaches so that if there is a stranding, which we do not anticipate, we can stop immediately until there is some reason established for the stranding.

"This is written under US law, but if we go to other countries, there may be other laws and procedures.

"It is fine to do something that meets the criteria of US law, but if you operate in other countries they don't necessarily need to accept the conclusion of a US agency."

The researchers had US government approval which was sent from the State Department to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, which in turn passed it to Government House, then Bermuda Government for a decision.

Mr. Rowlinson: "We talked about opening the lines of communication in the assessment process. That won't interfere with the official lines of communication.

"It was appreciated by both sides that for this kind of science, there needs to be a longer lead-in time and we need to think about what kind of information we want to be submitted to support that application."

When asked if he thought, based on what he heard yesterday afternoon, that Bermuda would give the go-ahead next time, Mr. Rowlinson said: "I can't answer that.

"I would not be the one to make the decision and I would have to talk to colleagues who know more about it than I do.

"I suspect what when we receive the scientific information and the mitigation plan (to lessen the impact of the research) we may need to seek independent expert advice."