All the fish in Castle Harbour are dying and Government is not doing anything about it, a former Bermuda Biological Station employee has charged.

Mr. Brunell Spurling, who worked at the Biological Station for 30 years, claimed this week that the ash-concrete blocks from the Tynes Bay Waste Treatment Facility are killing the marine life in Castle Harbour.

Mr. Spurling, 72, said he has been a fisherman all his life and has seen many changes in local waters over the years but has "not seen anything like what has happened in Castle Harbour over the past year''.

"Every living thing is dead or dying (in the harbour),'' he said. "The water there is even filthier than the water in the Pembroke Canal.'' Scientists and Government officials told The Royal Gazette this week that if fish were being killed off, it was probably due to contamination from the metal dump site adjacent to the ash block site.

But Mr. Spurling claimed that a scientist -- whom he would not identify at the Biological Station agreed with him, but told him Government had too much money tied up in the incinerator project to do anything about it.

Noting that he caught fish for the Biological Station for 30 years, Mr.

Spurling said there were few surface fish around the area where incinerator ash-concrete blocks are dumped and no bottom fish or sea urchins.

Assistant research scientist at the Biological Station Dr. Robbie Smith said he felt the ash-concrete block issue was a "red herring''.

It was "inconceivable'' to say the blocks were having an effect on Castle Harbour after only eight months of dumping, he added.

Dr. Smith said the more pressing issues were the metal dump site which had higher levels of contamination than the ash-concrete block dump site, and the fact that society produces a lot of waste which has to be dealt with.

Government was doing a good job in managing waste and was obviously concerned with the environment because it was financing his research, he added.

Mr. Spurling also claimed the sea grass in the vicinity -- which includes a protected marine reserve -- had died, leaving only white sand.

And he said the sand had replaced the mud around the mangrove trees at Blue Hole which meant the trees were unable to root properly and "all the trees will go in the first hurricane we get''.

But head aquarist Mrs. Jennifer Gray-Conklin said sea grass normally disappeared during the year because it was seasonal.

She also said the Aquarium studied the marine reserve on a regular basis but it would take at least a year before it could say what effect the blocks were having on the marine environment.

Mr. Spurling also expressed concerns about a gas "bubbling'' out of the blocks and he said when he asked Biological Station officials -- who are testing the blocks for toxic emissions -- about the gas he was told it was just air.

Government environmental engineer Dr. Tom Sleeter said there was a hydrogen-based gas given off by the first blocks put in the water.

This, he said, was due to a high amount of aluminium in the original ash-concrete mix which reacted with the salt water.

However, he said the problem was quickly rectified and no gas was being produced by the blocks any longer.

Dr. Sleeter also said the ash-concrete dump site had less of an impact on the surrounding area than the metal dump site.