Cancer causing asbestos should be among the top items to be dealt with when Parliament reopens November 2, insists Shadow Environment Minister Gary Pitman.

He says Government should start by tabling a report which looked into the circumstances surrounding the removal of asbestos at a Southside construction site.

Health and Social Services Minister Nelson Bascome said he too is anxious to table the report in the House of Assembly - but it's not quite ready yet.

Meanwhile Minister of Works and Engineering Alex Scott says that progress is being made on the thorny problem of disposing of containers of asbestos in a Government quarry. Negotiations are on to have the substance shipped off to another country.

At Southside, Government backbencher Arthur Pitcher had secured a contract to build a 20-family development, but the project has been plagued with controversy and labour strife since it began.

Work came to a screeching halt in June 2000, when allegations were made that Mr. Pitcher's crews demolished asbestos-ridden homes at the site without wearing proper protective gear and left the hazardous material lying on the ground and in open trucks next to Clearwater School.

The following month, Health Minister Nelson Bascome announced a Government probe into whether any laws were broken. But he played down the risk to the health of workers and said there was no need for a public inquiry.

In August 2000 it was reported that the first draft of the inquiry's report had been completed by Department of Health officials, and the Opposition United Bermuda Party called for the report to be made public in March this year.

Mr. Pitman renewed the call yesterday saying "it should be tabled as soon as we go in." He added that it was "rather intriguing" that it had not been tabled already.

"If it's been done why hasn't it been tabled?"

Mr. Bascome told The Royal Gazette that in fact only a part of the report had been completed. And his officers were working on a comprehensive report on asbestos handling on the Island.

Asked when it will be completed, he said: "I don't know. It's one of the things my technical officers have been a little bit slow in returning back to me on."

He also reminded the public that Mr. Pitcher's workmen were only alleged to have mishandled the asbestos, and that four companies had been working at Southside.

The report will cover a time frame of about five years and identify companies that had failed to follow guidelines.

"We've had several companies that have broken the laws," he said. "It can be put to bed but it will be put to bed comprehensively."

Mr. Bascome is promising "renewed and better" enforcement of asbestos abatement laws.

The Southside site is only the most recent case which has raised public concerns about asbestos exposure.

Bermuda is still home to hundreds of rusting containers holding asbestos in Government quarries near Castle Harbour and at the airport.

"There's literally hundreds of containers and many of them have holes in them," Mr. Pitman said. "It could be a serious health hazard, especially for those people at the Castle Harbour."

Proposals in the past by former Governments to dispose of the asbestos by mixing it with concrete and dropping it into the sea were opposed by environmental groups. But the United Bermuda Party says it is the only solution besides shipping it off the Island for disposal elsewhere.

Asbestos is hazardous when it gets into the air, noted Mr. Pitman. Mixed into concrete blocks and dropped in the ocean would provide an artificial reef and a habitat for fish, he said.

That proposal has not been "officially opposed" by the ruling Progressive Labour Party, continued Mr. Pitman. "But they didn't come up with solutions either. So we've heard nothing."

Mr. Scott said the UBP's proposals had attracted the attention of the global environmental group Greenpeace. "We're not going to dump it in the sea," he said. "That's not the image Bermuda wants - as polluter of the sea."

Instead the asbestos would be shipped out of Bermuda's environment - provided current negotiations lead to a contract that's cost-effective and legal guarantees that Bermuda would not be held liable if it becomes a "hazardous waste issue in the other country. He said it is "premature" to reveal the other country.

Disposing of the asbestos at the airport is part and parcel of the British Government's negotiations with the Americans over the bases clean-up, he said.

Asbestos has been linked to some forms of cancer in humans and its use for new developments is banned both here and in the United States.