solution to the row over the multi-million dollar clean-up of the old US Navy bases on the Island, UBP insiders revealed yesterday.

The news quashes rumours in other sections of the media that Ms Gordon was set to name the date today. Party insiders said last night: "It won't be today -- it'll be soon, but it's definitely not today.'' Insiders also dismissed the possibility of the writ being dropped after the United Bermuda Party caucus meets on Thursday.

Premier Pamela Gordon was last night en route to Bermuda from the US and could not be contacted.

Ms Gordon and party campaign committee chairman Mike Winfield were on a flying visit to pollsters Penn and Schoen to discuss the latest round of surveys of the mood of the Island.

The US trip means the Premier is moving closer to calling the General Election.

But it is believed she wishes to exhaust all possible avenues to a solution to the stand-off over the clean-up, estimated to cost up to $55 million to complete.

Bermuda and the US have been locked in talks over pollution -- including oil, tons of potentially fatal asbestos and poisonous metals like lead -- since the US Naval Air Station in St. David's and the Naval Annex in Southampton shut down.

It was revealed last week that a $100 million US payoff to Canada for anti-pollution work on two former US bases offered fresh hope to Bermuda.

The two bases were handed over to the US under the same World War II lend-lease arrangement which saw Bermuda lose ten percent of its available land as part of the arms-for-bases agreement between the UK and the US.

But the US insisted after the pull-out that the terms of the base treaty did not leave them liable for pollution -- unless it posed a "known imminent and substantial danger to human health and safety.'' Bermuda carried out its own surveys on the affected land, using US and Canadian companies familiar with US law on the subject - but these were rejected by the US.

Finance Minister Dr. Gibbons said last week, however, that "a detailed rebuttal'' of the US line on the Bermuda surveys was set to be sent to the US in the near future.