Finance Minister Bob Richards’ assertion that it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up Morgan’s Point has been met with scepticism.For years, the public has been told that the cost to clean up the 240 acre brownfield site — left polluted by the United States — would cost about $35 million.But Mr Richards told The Royal Gazette last week that the clean up agreed to by the former administration would cost the taxpayer “hundreds of millions of dollars to get parts of that property to residential standards.”His comments came as he defended his approach to providing a financial guarantee to the Morgan’s Point resort project.“Even if we spent a billion dollars, we wouldn’t be able to be sure we could get that property — the whole property — to that standard,” the Minister said.“My reaction to that is that he’s definitely been ill advised,” said construction boss Zane Desilva.Mr DeSilva’s Island Construction had put in a bid for the clean up job back in 2009.“I can tell you its not even close to $100 million, that’s for sure.”He would not say how much his company bid but agreed that the cost would be in the $30 to $50 million range.“Unless they have made some discovery that would change that,” he cautioned.“He (the Finance Minister) must be drinking some of the jet fuel to come up with a number like that.”Instead of awarding the clean up contract to one company, Government decided to split the work among several companies.Mr DeSilva said several companies had bid on the job, and his would have teamed up with international remediation specialists from Europe.“The bid that we had put in would have brought it up to international standards.”Developer Michael MacLean also put in a bid for the clean up.He told The Royal Gazette that his company, with foreign partners, could have done the clean up for less than $45 million.“We submitted a quote and we stand by that quote,” he said.Three Bermudian entrepreneurs Nelson Hunt, Craig Christensen and Brian Duperreault are spearheading the development of a luxury $2 billion resort at Morgan’s Point, after agreeing to a land swap which left their original site, Southlands, in Government hands.But parts of Morgan’s Point were left heavily polluted with asbestos, metals, petroleum products and other chemicals when the US military left the Island in 1995.Government was unable to get the Americans to clean up their mess, and agreed to take responsibility for the clean-up.Mr Richards’ contention that Government agreed to impossible terms when the land swap was made, leading to exorbitant clean up costs, flies in the face of the developers’ own recent comments.Mr Christensen told this newspaper in June that the extent of pollution at the site was not as bad as feared, and that the clean up bill could in fact be lower than original estimates.We asked the Finance Minister what new information he had to justify his estimates, but no response was received by presstime last night.Public Works Minister Trevor Moniz whose Ministry had put the work out to tender in 2009, declined to comment.