gather samples from the sea floor to establish whether a Soviet submarine that was sunk off Bermuda ten years ago is leaking radioactive waste.

The San Francisco Examiner's science writer Keay Davidson reported yesterday that the sub called K-219 was sunk 18,000 feet beneath the waves some 600 miles off Bermuda in 1986.

At that time she was laden with nuclear war heads and 200 pounds of radioactive plutonium 239.

The Examiner reported that some of this radioactive material spilled into the sea and a team of Russian investigators discovered traces of plutonium on floating submarine debris.

"Despite Soviet and US assurances at the time that there was no radioactive contamination,'' the article said. "The Examiner has learned that is was the first case in which weapons-grade plutonium leaked from the submarine into the ocean.'' CNN carried a similar story yesterday as did ZBM-TV. However The Royal Gazette reported on the possibility back in 1994.

At that time Russian scientists had claimed that the sub was leaking radioactive material into an area where there were strong currents and there were fears that environmental damage would follow.

And both the American and Russian authorities agreed that the area should be monitored.

Local marine experts that The Royal Gazette interviewed back in 1994 said they believed the chance of any harmful affect on the Island is "about zero.'' "There is no way that something in the water 5,000 metres deep, 500 miles east of here could affect the water around the Island,'' Bermuda Biological Station for Research scientist Dr. Tony Michaels said at the time.

Sleeter agreed and said he did not think the Island would see any radioactive fish popping up around Bermuda because the sub was too far and too deep.

White House advisor Frank Von Hippel a Princeton professor and one of the United States' leading experts on plutonium told The Examiner: "It's a big ocean...the plutonium spill is not something that I would get immediately alarmed about. But it would be nice if one could clean it up.'' The sub sank east of the Island after an explosion and fire that killed four crew members.

And of the many Soviet subs that sank in the Cold War, it carried the largest compliment of nuclear equipment.

When it went down in early October 1986, a US Department of Defence spokesman told The Royal Gazette the likelihood of a radiation leak was "minimal''.

The spokesman also said corrosion of the sub's nuclear equipment would be "very slow . . . in spaces of thousands of years''.

And then Premier Sir John Swan stated: "We have been in touch with British authorities and have been assured there is absolutely no danger of a radioactive leak.'' But Greenpeace environmentalists, calling the sinking a "maritime Chernobyl'', challenged the Government assurances there'd be no radiation contamination.

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