to clean hazardous materials from the US Navy bases here if they are shut down.

The report by the Department's Inspector General said the $33,500,000 estimate included the clean-up of asbestos, hazardous waste, PCBs, underground storage tanks and solid wastes.

But the massive figure was downplayed yesterday by a US Navy officer, who said it represented the cost of shipping all hazardous materials off the Island and returning the land to pristine condition.

Cdr. Mike Donnelly, the US Naval Air Station's top Public Works officer, said the estimate reflected Defence Department standards that are generally tougher than Bermuda's.

And despite the report creating an impression of environmental mess at the Base, the commander said: "We're quite tame here. We don't have any high-tech industrial processes. We're more a city here than a military base.

"Because our operations are limited on this base, we're not generating a whole lot of toxic wastes.

"I think the important thing for Bermudians to understand is that we do not dispose of hazardous waste on the Island. It's all shipped away in an approved manner.'' Mr. Curtis Kimbel, a civilian environmental officer attached to the Navy, said the Base's hazardous waste was the by-product of light industry such as routine vehicle and aircraft maintenance, construction and repair work and household products such as batteries, paint and pesticides.

"There is no nerve gas, nothing nuclear,'' he said.

Cdr. Donnelly added that the amount of waste materials had gone down as the role of the Base declined.

"There is less aircraft maintenance, less fuel drainage and less plane cleaning,'' he said.

The commander and Mr. Kimbel were interviewed by The Royal Gazette after it obtained a copy of the Inspector General's report from a Washington source.

The 35-page report, which was put together last winter, recommended complete withdrawal of air station operations by 1995 at the latest.

And in a three-paragaph "Environmental Concerns'' section, the Inspector General focused on a "number of potentially hazardous environmental areas that could be of concern'' in the event of a shutdown.

The known areas included buildings containing asbestos, electrical transformers containing PCBs and landfills.

The report acknowledged Defence Department obligations to restore the environment of any base it returned to a home government and to eliminate known risks to health and safety there.

Base environment officers provided the Inspector General with contractors' estimates of a clean-up.

Their $33.5 million price tag included $16,750,000 for asbestos removal, $6 million for enclosing land fills, more than $9 million for restoring underground storage tanks, $300,000 for the removal of PCBs and $800,000 for removal of miscellaneous hazardous materials such as paint, batteries and oil.

Cdr. Donnelly said the US Navy's environmental standards were drawn from Defence Department or local government regulations -- whichever was toughest.

Compliance is inspected by the Department's executive agents who set the standards at each base.

The Commander added that the Navy's environmental team employed four civilians, two Navy assistants and one officer to maintain its data base.

More specifically, he said, the Base had a hazardous waste management plan that stringently governed the distribution, handling and disposal of waste materials -- even at the household level.

And the Base is served by a certified waste disposal company that regularly takes away hazardous materials on the Longtail Express container ship. Mr.

Kimbel said the $16.7 million clean-up bill for asbestos was the cost for "removing every single speck'' of the material from Base buildings. He noted that almost all of it was not dangerous.

"It's not airborne,'' he said. "We don't feel there is a health concern associated with it.'' Cdr. Donnelly said Bermudians should not be alarmed by the $33.5 million clean-up estimate.

"By themselves, the estimates are a concern,'' he said. But environmental care had steadily improved to the point that it is "a big part of our life here. We want to do things right.''