has called for a comprehensive environmental review of the Airport dump site.

Citing a "real risk to human health'', the Trust's Wayne Carey told The Royal Gazette they want Government to consider all options, including moving the controversial dump should it prove to be poisoning Castle Harbour.

"This is not a new issue, but we're now hearing stories from fisherman who are catching fish with certain odours.'' said Mr. Carey. "The situation is getting much worse and we're concerned about a threat to human health.'' In a letter to be delivered Monday to Environment Minister Irving Pearman, the Trust's Marine Environmental Committee will be asking Government to initiate testing of adult fish caught in Castle Harbour, to re-examine the location of the dump at the Airport, and to look again at how materials dumped into the water are to be contained.

"They say they want to corral these materials using (concrete) and ash blocks from the (Tynes Bay) incinerator, but if you go out there you can see these blocks are breaking apart on land.

"If they're cracking on dry land what will happen once they're in the water with all the wave action, salt water, and crustaceans (that will bore into them),'' said Mr. Carey.

As recently as last month's Budget Debate in the House of Assembly, then Minister of the Environment Pam Gordon acknowledged research conducted by the Bermuda Biological Station for Research pointed to the presence of heavy metal pollution in Castle Harbour. Government she said, was monitoring it.

Trust calls for dump study Minister of Works and Engineering C.V. (Jim) Woolridge last night told The Royal Gazette . "They're handling more than 200 truckloads per week right now. It's a pretty big project and you're bound to have a bit of slippage.'' While saying he wasn't worried about reports of heavy metals leaching into the water, Mr. Woolridge said he would act on any concerns brought up by the National Trust.

Controversy has dogged the east-end dump since 1994, when Government closed the Pembroke dump.

A spokesman for Hunt's Sanitation and Excavating Services -- which has been contracted to operate the dump -- warned last year that Castle Harbour would look like "an unflushed toilet bowl'' unless Bermuda changed its waste disposal habits.

"We can't continue to fill here -- not at this rate,'' Mr. Nelson Hunt told The Royal Gazette last June.

His comments followed a warning in 1995 by Government Conservation Officer David Wingate that Castle Harbour could be poisoned by the dump.

Tests by BBSR have -- since 1995 -- indicated an "appreciable amounts of heavy metals and other contaminants'' leaching from the dump site into the water, said Mr. Wingate, warning with a ten-fold increase in dumping the problem would only get worse.