The PLP Government has made its first face-to-face contact with the US government in a bid to have America clean up the multi-million dollar mess left behind when it quit its Bermuda bases.

And now Premier Jennifer Smith has invited US lawmakers to Bermuda for a first-hand look at the pollution problems on the old US Navy installations.

Ms Smith -- who led a delegation to Washington for talks with US legislators -- said yesterday she was hopeful of a solution to the problem.

She added: "These were preliminary discussions -- and it exceeded our expectations.

"We have invited a number of people to Bermuda so they can see the whole picture.'' Ms Smith explained: "They just see it as the closure of the bases -- they are used to closing bases and they don't realise the impact it has on people.'' She added that -- unlike many other US bases which were in isolated spots -- the small size of Bermuda and the density of population meant that pollution had a much more immediate impact on the community.

Ms Smith said: "By bringing them to Bermuda, we believe they will be able to see the whole picture and it will help our case.'' She added that the meeting on Monday was "the first step'' -- and added there would be follow-up meetings involving Development and Opportunity Minister Terry Lister and Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson.

And she praised the British Embassy in Washington for helping to arrange the meetings and for their backing of Bermuda's case for America to foot the multi-million dollar tab for removing the US pollution from the Island.

When the US Navy left in 1995, problems left behind at its St. David's air base included tons of oil and potentially deadly asbestos as well as poisonous heavy metals.

And at the US's old Naval Annex in Southampton -- now known as Morgan's Point and earmarked for a major tourist development -- up to a half-a-million gallons of fuel is thought to have leaked from tanks and accumulated in underground caves.

Tons of asbestos insulation -- which can cause cancers and fatal lung diseases -- is currently stored in containers awaiting a decision on how to dispose of it.

A row over the pollution -- which will cost an estimated $60 million to clean up -- has soured relations between the US and Bermuda since the bases closed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The official US position is that it will only pay for clean-ups where there is "an imminent threat to health and safety'' -- which the US authorities insist is not the case in Bermuda.

Government backed that position -- but an environmental probe knocking the US reports commissioned by the then-UBP Government was used to bolster the Island's case in talks with top figures at the US military's nerve centre, the Pentagon.

And in January, UK Labour Party veteran Lord Ashley -- a former Health and Social Services Minister -- said he was "astounded'' that the US had denied liability.

Lord Ashley, who headed a delegation from the UK Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to Bermuda, raised the issue with Overseas Territories Minister Baroness Symons when he returned to London.

He later said that Baroness Symons had pledged to push Bermuda's case with the US government.

Deputy Governor Tim Gurney added yesterday that Baroness Symons had raised the issue when she visited Washington last month.

He said: "She made it clear that Britain is concerned about finding a resolution to this problem.'' ENVIRONMENT ENV