The Opposition Leader has told Government to stop ducking the issue about a massive environmental clean-up needed at Morgan?s Point.

UBP Leader Grant Gibbons spoke out yesterday in response to news this week that the Bermuda Land Development Company (BLDC) has spent $6.5 million on environmental remediation work at Bermuda?s former Baselands.

?Clearly Government has not been proactive in terms of the clean-up,? Dr. Gibbons said. ?There is a huge amount of land effectively sterilised up there. Nor has there proceeded any reasonable development. A huge opportunity has been lost to the Island, in terms tourism, housing and open space.

?It could have been enormously beneficial to tourism development, given the sorry state of tourism in the last five to six years,? he added.

?Six bids were put in before the change of Government in 1998,? he said.

Since 1998 a US based company called the West Group fronted by Gerry Halpen did have some discussion with the PLP Government, he said, ?but the new Government chased them away?.

A copy of a 2005 BLDC financial report obtained by BLDC said it was ?especially concerned about the most immediate environmental damage? at the former US Naval Annex at Morgan?s Point.

Minister Ashfield DeVent and new housing quango overseer Col. David Burch failed to say whether Government had changed their issue on Morgan?s Point, as stated in the 2005 BLDC report.

?Government is simply ducking the issue,? he said. ?It is morally wrong and also wrong in terms of the importance of bringing that land back to Bermuda. If they have changed their position, it is so important that it should be a public debate. In the mid-1990?s there were a lot of public meetings. It was done very openly and transparently. It should not be done behind closed doors with a lot of smoke and mirrors.?

The 2005 BLDC report also stated the Company had compiled a report for Government that reviews the environmental risks at Morgan?s Point and recommends a possible course of action.

This report had not been made public yesterday, however, Dr. Gibbons said ?it is a matter of public record and as such should be put into the public domain.?

There are 520,000 gallons of viscous oil and sludge which have seeped into Bassett?s cave. There is also a 55,000 gallon plume of J5 Jet Fuel discovered beneath the 250 acre site.

Dr. Gibbons said the cost of cleaning up the former bases was placed at $55 million in the 1997 J.A. Jones report.

?The entire annex alone was estimated to cost $14.5 million, which included remediation, cleaning Bassett?s cave and the 134 underground storage tanks scattered all over the Bases,? Dr. Gibbons said.

Of that $14.5 million, $6 million was for environmental cleanup, $3.5 million for asbestos, $3.8 million for demolition of existing structures and $1.3 million for overall programme maintenance, he said.

Meanwhile the Shadow Minister of the Environment, Cole Simons yesterday said that the Government had done nothing to provide funding that would remediate the damage done to the Basset Caves and the surrounding area.

Mr. Simons said the BLDC, like the UBP was very concerned about the damage done to the existing eco systems, which surround the cave network, along with the impact that the fuel , sludge and viscous oil has on the the Southampton water lens and the surrounding agricultural land.

The report goes on to confirm that the BLDC has made an appeal to the PLP Government to provide funding for remediation of the Basset?s Cave and its immediate area, and again, as though they were in the Opposition Members, their request were met with silence and no action.

?Obviously this is not a priority to this environmentally insensitive Government. In fact the people of Southampton and Bermuda ought to note that the none of the Government?s eight Annual Budgets have allotted any funding for the diffusion of this environmental time bomb,? he said.