Island delegation.

Finance Minister Grant Gibbons, who is expected to accompany Premier Pamela Gordon and senior Civil Servants to Washington next month, yesterday said discussions with William Cassidy, the US Navy Under-Secretary with responsibility for American bases and the environment, would continue under the new leader.

The Bermuda delegation is also expected to meet members of the US Senate and Congress who are sympathetic to Bermuda's case.

Dr. Gibbons said: "We are trying to schedule some follow-up meetings on the base situation, particularly the environmental situation.'' He added that talks with Bermuda's US legal advisors and the US Navy had continued since ex-Premier David Saul and a Bermuda delegation had met with US President Bill Clinton and US Navy men last summer.

Dr. Gibbons said: "It's important for us now to have the new Premier go up to Washington and present some new information about the environmental issues.'' Dr. Gibbons declined to show Bermuda's hand in advance of further talks with the US.

But it is understood that discussions will centre around Article 21 of the agreement signed between Britain and the US Government over the leasing of a slew of foreign bases promised in return for the lend-lease of military hardware to the UK as it battled alone against Nazi Germany.

Dr. Gibbons said: "One of the things we are wrestling with is Article 21, which said the US could abandon all or part of the leased land without incurring any obligations thereby.'' But it is believed part of the Island's argument for the US to take responsibility is that the agreement was signed in the 1940s -- before the hazardous potential of materials like asbestos, tons of which were left behind by the US when it quit the Island in 1995, were fully understood.

Containers full of asbestos, widely used as an insulation, roofing and fire-proofing material, have been removed from the Base lands as demolition work went on and are still in limbo waiting for disposal.

Asbestos -- an inert material -- was widely used in buildings until it was discovered the dust, if inhaled, can cause lung disease, including the killers asbestosis and cancer.

Dr. Gibbons said that talks on the clean-up of the old bases had been affected by the US presidential election late last year and the resignation of Dr. Saul this year, which forced the cancellation of meetings with US negotiators in March.

The news came a day after it was revealed that Ms Gordon may meet President Clinton in the near future.

And she vowed, if the meeting comes off, to use the opportunity to push the US to assist in the environmental clean-up of the former Bases.

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