An advisor to a US Senator will visit Bermuda at the end of the week to see the mess the American Navy left behind on its old base lands.

And Development and Opportunity Minister Terry Lister said that the number three man at the British Embassy in Washington -- on the Island for a meeting of Overseas Territories Attorneys General -- would also tour the former military sites before returning to the US.

Mr. Lister said: "We have been inviting people to come down here and see it for themselves.

"There is a marked difference between those who have heard about the bases and those who have seen them.'' Mr. Lister -- who was in Washington recently in a bid to persuade the US to foot the bill for the estimated $60 million clean-up of its old air base in St. David's and at the ex-Naval Annex in Southampton -- said discussions had "gone extremely well''.

He added that Government had been petitioning the US Senate Arms Committee, the Appropriations Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Lister said: "The intent would be to have one of these committees attach Bermuda's problem to their funding -- if we can do that, we have been successful.'' He added that independent countries like Canada -- which recently got a base payoff from the US -- negotiated through their Ministry of Defence with the US Department of Defence, but said that was not an option for Bermuda, which is still tied to Britain.

But he said: "It doesn't weaken our chances..it means a greater involvement by the British.'' And he added that the UK Government had promised its commitment to helping the Island find a satisfactory solution to the US pollution problem.

Mr. Lister said: "That's a very effective part of the whole process and indicates the British are prepared to stand behind us.

"If's fine for us to making an appeal on our own, but it's wise to bring the British in and have them on our side.'' Premier Jennifer Smith led a delegation to Washington a week ago in the PLP Government's first face-to-face talks with the US authorities on the bases controversy.

When the US Navy quit Bermuda in 1995, problems left behind included tons of oil and potentially deadly asbestos, as well as poisonous heavy metals.

And at the Annex -- earmarked for a major tourist development -- up to half-a-million gallons of fuel is thought to have leaked from tanks and accumulated in underground caves.

The official US position is that it will only pay for clean-ups when there is "an imminent threat to health and safety'' which it insists is not the case in Bermuda.

Surveys by the US Government backed that position -- but an environmental probe knocking the US conclusions was delivered to Washington by the then-UBP Government.

And UK Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons used a visit to Washington last month to push Bermuda's case with the US government.

ENVIRONMENT ENV