The US Navy planned to blow up a cave it pumped full of oil and raw sewage in a bid to hide the evidence, an American scientist said yesterday.

Marine biologist Thomas Iliffe said the US Navy definitely had a responsibility to clean up the $65 million mess it left behind when it quit Bermuda.

Texas A&M University cave-life expert Dr. Iliffe -- who once worked at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR) and visited Bassett's Cave at Southampton's Naval Annex -- trashed the Americans' insistence that they had no obligation to Bermuda.

He said: "That's pretty hard to justify in my opinion, seeing what I saw in there. I tried to get them to stop and clean it up but they were more interested in hiding it.

"I think they thought if they went to clean it up, they would be admitting they were liable.'' But he insisted: "I believe indeed they do have a responsibility to clean it up and that's what I was trying to urge them to do.

"It's a threat to the environment. When I was in Bermuda, all my work dealt with studies of the biology of the caves.'' And he agreed that, based on the oil and sewage pollution at Bassett's Cave, the US Navy had no respect for Bermuda's environment.

Dr. Iliffe said: "No, they didn't. They seemed more concerned with not getting into trouble and basically leaving things as they were.'' The Royal Gazette revealed last month that the US Navy dumped oil and raw sewage in the cave for decades.

A team hired by the UK Government to carry out a probe into US pollution visited the cave recently and were stunned at the scale of the problems left behind.

The pollution at the Annex and at the old US Naval Air Station in St. George's includes oil, potentially deadly asbestos and poisonous heavy metals.

And Dr. Iliffe admitted he was horrified at what he saw when he visited the cave under the Annex in the mid-80s while working at the BBSR.

He added that he told the US Navy it was out of line but dumping appeared to have continued until the US left Bermuda.

Dr. Iliffe said he struck an agreement with a hotelier, who operated a waste oil burning boiler, to dispose of the oil free of charge after he saw the cave.

But he added: "When I approached the Commander of the Navy base with this offer, he turned it down.

Cave was to be blown up "He said that before the property would be returned to Bermuda, some explosives would be found to bring down the roof of the cave.

"He was far more interested in covering up the problem than cleaning it up.'' Dr. Iliffe added: "If that had happened, nobody would know about the pollution. But just because they don't know about it doesn't, in my book, make it any less severe.'' And Dr. Iliffe -- who identified around 60 species found only in Bermuda's caves -- said the US pollution probably destroyed entire species in Bassett's Cave.

He added: "I would expect at one time it probably contained rather rich and unique fauna.

"But of course, the pollution has destroyed all of that.

"It's very likely that a number of species which inhabited the cave probably became extinct due to pollution.'' And Dr. Iliffe said there was evidence it was once an attraction.

He said: "We found a lot of names written on the rocks. The most recent ones were from the late 1800s. It was obviously very well-frequented in the past judging by the names in there.''