such as the claims made over the weekend by PLP MP Mr. Stanley Morton about disposal of waste at Pembroke Dump.

However, we are also concerned about noise pollution which seems to grow on this tiny Island, especially during the outdoor summer months. We think Bermuda is becoming careless about adding new noises and new noise machines.

Sometimes noise pollution is allowed to increase in the interests of personal freedom, without any real consideration for the effects on the bystander. As an example, we think "personal water craft'' or jet skis are tolerated on the basis that they should be allowed simply because they are a young people's choice over other water craft. There may be some validity in that argument but we could argue that few other craft have such a piercing howl and the chug of a motor boat or the whistle of a sail bear little resemblance to the piercing whine of a jet ski when you are trying to relax outside on a summer evening.

We are not picking on jet skis but they are a recent addition to the summer noises and have not been tolerated in many other places. Just ask the people at Ferry Reach who now have power boats, jet skis, jet planes and screaming models to contend with.

There was a time when Bermuda was very careful not to add the overhead racket of helicopters. In fact, we thought the issue of helicopter noise had been settled some years ago when Mr. Boyd Monroe was made to take his machine and go elsewhere. It was not to be. Under the questionable guise of aerial photography the skies are disrupted once more, and, we think, without any result sufficient to justify the disturbance. When Mr. Ross Perot becomes an official US presidential candidate and decides to come to Bermuda again, the skies overhead will probably crawl with "protective'' helicopters.

Bermuda no longer seems to care as much as it once did about the decibels of mopeds and, more and more we think, they simply roar about the roads. Just as litter breeds litter, noise breeds more and more noise and, as the level of noise increases, the care about quiet decreases.

Much of the broadcast noise problem stems from the use of amplifiers.

Basically, music played in an ordinary fashion is not disturbing but it becomes so when someone decides to see how loud it can blast. One unhappy aspect of that fact is the appearance of amplifiers on boats. Summer escape to the water has long been a favourite means of relaxation which can now be blasted apart. There was a law passed restricting the distance broadcast sound could be heard from its source but it seems not to be publicised or enforced except by complaint.

There are any number of other examples of undue noise, some old, some new, and they are often a symptom of summer. We cannot go on enacting petty laws to control everything in Bermuda but we really must deal in common sense. Clearly Bermuda is no longer "The Isles of Rest'' but it does not have to become a decibel jungle.