It has been more than a year since Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson said he hoped a unique restoration project would help re-establish Pembroke Canal as a living part of the Island.

However the status of the whole project is in question following an investigation by The Royal Gazette .

In March, 1999, Mr. Hodgson noted that there was increasing "environmental consciousness'' around the Island and said: "The goal would eventually be to clean up the whole canal, with the idea of making portions a walkable park.

"We have identified every owner along the canal and written telling them we are beginning initiatives to clean the water. It is a partnership between Government and industry.'' Mr. Hodgson added: "We are monitoring it at every stage and it is being done to US Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.'' More than a year later, the enthusiasm for the clean up of Pembroke Canal appears to have become stuck in the mud.

Mr. Hodgson's observation last year that "there is very little life in the canal'' and "there are high concentrations of metals, petroleum and sewage'' appears to be the case still.

He was unavailable for comment yesterday.

But Government Environmental Engineer Tom Sleeter said the Ministry of Works and Engineering and Holmes Williams & Purvey (HWP) had each dredged portions of the canal with the aim of boosting its flow.

The work done by HWP on their section of the canal was carried out by independent contractor Alan Doughty who said everything possible was done to clean up that section.

Belco's chief environment officer Wayne Carey, who is also the head of the Canal Committee which was set up last year, said the utility company had done some preliminary work with Government in an effort to clean up the canal.

The committee had several meetings, he continued, and reached the point where an action plan could be talked about but no action plan was defined.

And since then it had fallen dormant as those involved were "busy with other responsibilities'', he noted, but he hoped it would be reactivated later this year.

Mr. Carey also raised some of the concerns that had been discussed when the committee was still active, including the many developments along the canal, and future developments which could all contribute more pollution.

On April 11, complaints surfaced from Mills Creek residents that a red chemical was floating in the water there.

The Bermuda Biological Station for Research's Kent Simmons said heavy rains and a high concentration of iron were to blame for the discolouration.

The heavy rains on April 9 dumped some three inches of water on the Island and there was a huge runoff of surface water through Pembroke Canal into Mills Creek.

This surface water was fresh, with a salinity of about 1 part per thousand, a pH of 7.8 and a relatively high iron concentrate of about 1 part per million.

When the water entered Mills Creek, which had a salinity of about 35 parts per thousand, a pH of 8.2 and an iron concentration of less than 0.01 parts per million, the interaction resulted in a rapid increase in both pH and ionic strength of the fresh water as it mixed with the seawater.

This caused the dissolved iron to precipitate and appear as a fine grained, colloidal, red iron oxide particle which caused the visual phenomenon in Mills Creek.

These particles grew until they were too heavy to remain suspended and sunk to the bottom of the Creek.

That was then: Pembroke canal in more glorious days