Draft Water Resources Law - Well Drillers and Engineers Association - Transcript - 26 July 2004

DRAFT WATER RESOURCES (JERSEY) LAW 200-

TRANSCRIPT OF EVIDENCE

PROVIDED TO THE VIBERT SCRUTINY PANEL BY

GEORGE LANGLOIS, WATER DIVINER LEWIS DE LA HAYE, WELL DRILLER

PUBLIC HEARING SESSION ON 26th JULY 2004

CONTENTS

1. Background history - lack ofresponse from PublicServicesandBGS
2. Deepgroundwaterresources
3. Experienceas a waterdiviner for 45 years
   4. Cannot detect non moving shallow top layer ofwater
   5. Deepwaterresourcesupto600feet
   6. Rozelsource
   7. Respect for dowsinginFrance
   8. Licencefor drilling bores
   9. Lack ofresearch

10 Deep bores for emergency purposes

11. Saline intrusion
    12. Drilling Map
    13. Willing topassinformationtoPublicServices
    14. Records of drilling
    15. Proof ofdeep water resources
    16. Drilling experienceover25 years
    17. Noexperienceof wells dryingup
    18. Majority ofboresbelowsea level - nosaline intrusion
    19. Trace undergroundstreams
    20. Mapofbores
    21. Costs of drilling
    22. Rate of flow from bores

23. Drilling deeper levels
24. Undergroundstreams affected bymoon
25. Groundwaterconnexion with France
26. SussexWater Authority experimentinPyrenees
27. Lack ofrecognitionoveryears
28. RomanMap
29. Planned boreholeonLesEcrehous

30. NoDerogationofneighbouringboreholes

31 Domestic boreholes feeding a number of properties

32 Demand for commercial boreholes

33. Examplesofbores with strong flow rate
34. Artesian wells
35. Flow rates up to 10,000 gallonsanhour
36. Grouville Hill well
37. Furtherexamplesofartesian wells
38. Howcanyoupass a lawand charge for waterthat they saydoesn'texist?
39. Costof fitting meters
40. Special considerationbeinggiventotheJerseyNewWaterworksCompany.
41. Driving people to use mainswaterinsteadofboreholes - further stressonmains supply
42. Nocompensation in the eventofrevoking a licence
43. Useofthedeepboreholewater to supplementmainssupplyatStOuen's
44. Reportsofpastmeetings with PSC

45 Warm water sources

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: If you want to sit together then that's fine. I have to start by reading out

the notice which you will find in front of you. It reads as follows,

"Shadow scrutiny panels have been established "

So, may I first of all welcome you? Thank you very much for coming this afternoon and

perhaps we could start with Mr Langlois. I hope you don't mind, as you are scheduled in at the moment because you simply wrote in to request an oral submission so I think that perhaps it would be right for me to invite you to make your submission first and then we can follow on with questions. Are you happy with that?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Simply I requested this because the amount of times I have written into the

water department of public services.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Could I just stop you? You may have to lean forward because this is

being recorded and it will be difficult for the transcribers.

1. Background history - lack ofresponsefromPublicServices and BGS

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Well, during the past few years I have been asked to put written

information into the water department on public services and most times we have just been ignored and this is why I have got a lot of mail copied here from the Evening Post over the years, from agricultural committee, we've had meetings and we've been going to bring specialists over from the other side

and offered to do free bores like in the Ecrehous and things like this and then hand it over to the States

afterwards and every time it was ready to do, like the one on the Ecrehous, the army was coming in. They were going to supply a landing craft. It was all going to be done free, as an exercise, and then handed over to the States. At the very last moment it was blocked and we've had this many, many times.

2. Deepgroundwaterresources

I've got a load of mail there where all this has happened over the years because the

British Geological Survey, who works in with public services at the time and the water department, they'd been getting tens of thousands of pounds out of the States to be able to say, "There's no water below 75 feet and it's only rainwater. There's no other water". Now, there is a lot of other water. There is a second layer under the island. We have a lot of streams coming from east to west. We've tapped them. Probably around 5,000 so far. Anything down up to 600 feet deep and some of them are pressurised. They flow over the top and just flow out to sea or go to waste and this is happening all over the island. There's no shortage of water in the island and there hasn't been. Not what we find anyway.

I cannot feel what I call the puddle, which is the surface water, the rainwater, which does

run dry. I can't feel it. There's no feeling at all but I feel movement in water which is down deep and I think --

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: Sorry to interrupt you there but for the benefit of the recording, this is as

you're -- as a water diviner you're --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: As a water diviner that's what I'm doing here this afternoon - as a water

diviner.

3. Experienceas a waterdiviner for 45 years

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Could you just explain, for the benefit of the panel, what your

experience has been over a period of years? You've been water divining for quite a few years.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Forty-five years.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Forty-five years.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: And my father and grandfather did it before me.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: And you've also been involved in drilling, presumably, have you? GEORGE LANGLOIS: No.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: You've just been water divining? I just want, for the record, to establish

that.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Mostly Lewis , next door to me here.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Has done the drilling?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: I advised to do the drilling because he's one of the best in the island.

4. Cannot detect non moving shallow top layer ofwater

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Could you then elaborate a little bit on the question because we're

looking at the water law and the need for the water law obviously and I think this is a very good opportunity for us to ask you to explain to us some of the aspects that have been put to us in terms of quality and stress and so on.

On the question of water in the island, obviously, you mentioned the top layer of water

which is rainwater which you would say is difficult to detect --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: I can't detect it.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: -- in terms of --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: I can only detect movements and the movement in the water. It's the deep

one down below.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Could you just explain, because I won't be devil's advocate but it's

temps passé, as they say, water diviners could detect movement even for shallow wells. Is that still the case?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Yes, because in streams you get what we call "heads" and in the old days,

in my father's time and grandfather's time, before the boring machines were available, you had to go down by hand or blast and so you found the heads, which are the cracks coming up towards the surface from the streams, and then you'd tap down to those and you'd get pressurised water coming up into a well, into a stone well which is quite a lot of in the island.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: So, if we look at the movement - this movement of water, would you

say in percentage terms, is this half the number of bores that we've had in the island or is it greater or less than that?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Oh, greater.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Greater.

5. Deepwaterresourcesupto600feet

GEORGE LANGLOIS: What we've done in the last few years, since we've had boring machines

and things like that, it's all deep stuff. It's all anything up to 600 feet down and it's free of a lot of the chemicals, a lot of the nitrates and stuff like that. Doesn't get any at all. And some of it is pressurised. The British Geological Survey say it cannot be pressurised as they say that it is only surface water but they've grudgingly admitted the last couple of years or so that there is other water.

6. Rozelsource

For instance, on top of Rozel we've found water now from the old volcano. A couple of

years back I found one of the blowholes on some land at the top of Rozel hill on an old farm and we put a bore down, or Lewis put a bore down, a hundred and ninety feet we said the water was and we stopped into this crack which was a lava crack. Lava had folded over the top, not the head. The first lot of water came out with quite a bit of sulphur in it and it burnt the grass around, didn't it, a bit? And after pumping it out for a day or two the water became clean and it's been clean ever since and it's flowing over the ground. It's going down the valley Rozel and out to sea and like that there's quite a lot of water around that area from the extinct volcano which a lot of it is just flowing away.

So, there is no shortage of water on the island it is there if you want to dig it out or pump

it out and we get this in different parts of the island, different waters.

7. Respect for dowsinginFrance

SENATOR VIBERT: I'd just like to ask, if I may, when you actually go down the depths that you

go down and you get this kind of water and you actually then read from the scientists, if I use the phrase, that there isn't water there, how do you react to that kind of information? Do you personally know that you've tapped it and it's there?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: You see, I work in Normandy so it is (inaudible). We are professionals over

there. I belong to the British Society of Dowsers. I have my number to operate in England. I'm a professional over there. But over here certain professionals like to call us amateurs and that way they can say, "Oh, I don't have to take notice of you. You're just an amateur". Even though they don't know what they're talking about and this is the problem.

8. Licencefor drilling bores

SENATOR VIBERT: Have you got any idea the kind of tests you feel ought to be carried out for

this matter to be really properly and effectively resolved?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: I reckon people should have a license for one thing. Especially one or two

of the boring people over here. They pretend and you get a lot of bores put down where there's no water below and this is not right because people get taken for a ride.

9. Lack ofresearch

SENATOR VIBERT: What I was meaning is that clearly, in your view, there hasn't been sufficient

research done to prove the fact that the water table in Jersey is under threat.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Well, officialdom has never liked to try and get it proved.

SENATOR VIBERT: Can I ask you what you consider to be an adequate testing proposal? In

other words, would it be to drill across the island 10 to 15 bores very deep to really prove the point that the water is there?

10 Deep bores for emergency purposes

GEORGE LANGLOIS: I reckon that's, in my estimation, that every place should have a deep bore

of this clean water for the sake of emergencies. If you had problems of atomic explosion or something like that coming in the surface water would be no good it would be contaminated. The reservoirs would be no good they'd be contaminated. You want to be able to bring up deep water which will keep the population going.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Could we just bring in Mr de la Haye in terms of your drilling experience

because clearly you have extensive experience throughout the island. Would you say that there are areas of the island that are less likely to produce water in the quantities you've been talking about than others? Are there differences, have you found saline intrusion, for example, in a number of areas? Could you give us a feel from your experience?

11. Saline intrusion

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Saline intrusion exists along Rozel Harbour and Beach area but all the way

along Grouville Bay from Gorey Slip to Seymour Inn about a mile and a half, that sand is 60 foot deep and the water oozes out the coast on the surface of the beach. Therefore you've got that 60 foot of water going out to sea and quite a lot of boreholes inland such as behind Grouville Church which are overflowing (inaudible). As Mr Langlois was saying, I've never seen any evidence that the water table is disappearing (several inaudible words). But going back to the deep water that Mr Langlois was talking about we've experienced that over and over again. That's spot on.

12. Drilling Map

Can I just show you the amount of drilling that we have done so you get some idea? SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Yes, certainly.

MR LANGLOIS: Again, one of the things with deep water is pressurised, a lot of it, and it does

overflow which you don't get from static water.

13. Willing topassinformationtoPublicServices

DEPUTY RONDEL: Whilst Mr de la Haye is getting his paperwork out, under this proposed new

law it is mentioned that the new law would allow the Public Service Department, who would be

administering it all, to have access to all your information i.e. your files, obviously in confidence. Would you gentlemen be minded to allow that information to be, in confidence, passed across to the Public Services Department's water section?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: I think it would do a lot of good because some of our files are far superior

to what they've got at the moment and it would do a lot of good to have the real accounts of water in the island instead of the pretend ones.

DEPUTY RONDEL: So, have you been asked for any information recently from the public

services water section?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Not lately, because I refused to do it. That's why I wanted to come before

a meeting to be able to talk because when we put it before them they say it's not true. I've even got some letters in here stating that they don't believe what we say, and yet we're the only ones that are bringing up the real water and there's no water shortage in the island, so long as you know where to look for it.

14. Records of drilling

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: If I may pick up on that theme, sir. This is to Mr de la Haye. I presume you

have records of what you have drilled and the geology.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: I do - [NOTE: since 1982.]

GEORGE LANGLOIS: You can't expose names. That wouldn't be fair unless you ask the people

first.

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: Have Public Services or BGS ever called on you to examine your records? LEWIS DE LA HAYE: They called on us the first time they came out to do some site investigation

in St Saviours and at the time there was no way we could help.

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: When was that?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Not the last time they came. I can't remember. 1990(?), is it? I'm not sure. DEPUTY BAUDAINS: When they first started?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: (several inaudible words).

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: Be about 10 to 12 years ago.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Yes, well I've got all the papers there from those days and it was covered

with the Evening Post as well and everything there's open and written down, the refusals, the

15. Proof ofdeep water resources

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: I know Mr Langlois has touched on this. I wonder again, though (inaudible)

because we're obviously looking for evidence. Now, it's generally believed by BGS that Jersey's aquifer is shallow. It's about 25 to 30 metres thick. It starts about 5 or 10 metres from the surface and that the yield of boreholes is

approximately 400 gallons an hour. What is your experience with the bores you've drilled? Because

some people say there's deeper water. Mr Langlois does.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: I've got plenty of proof there is deeper water.

16. Drilling experienceover25 years

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Deeper domestic is 100 - 200 feet normally. You're going to be talking

about 46 metres to keep just one house going. So, some areas it'll do it but 30 metres, 400 foot (inaudible) but then not everywhere. Some of those private house boreholes are 61 metres, 200 feet to supply. The other thing that I have to add is that nowadays new houses do not have loft tanks so to put in pressurised systems. The boreholes have to have water readily available to enable them to supply showers, dishwasher, car washing, possibly most of those at the same time. So, that changes the depth at which you have to have borehole really but then as from 200 foot onwards then sufficient water exists, usually anyway. There's a list of boreholes that we have at the moment that are artesian and coming out of the top. There's 22 or 23 there. Many more which we have not listed.

SENATOR VIBERT: Could you give us an indication of how many boreholes you actually drill a

year?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Yes, you can work it out at about one a week, [NOTE: including the

connexion to the property.]

SENATOR VIBERT: And you've been doing that for how long?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: About 25 years.

SENATOR VIBERT: In your experience, have you ever actually had knowledge of any of your

wells drying up?

17. Noexperienceof wells dryingup

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: No. The only one we've ever had a failure was -- I don't want to mention

names. It was down in the area of L'Etacq. We only had an area about as big as a car. There was no other property and I do dowsing as well as George does. There was no water in there anyway when I started so this came as no surprise. Otherwise we don't get too many problems with finding it. On our terms and conditions we guarantee water but then some places if you don't dowse you're putting your neck on the line such as along the top of Les Platons and places like that. Otherwise you come unstuck.

SENATOR VIBERT: Even in the last drought it appears that (several inaudible words) had no

examples of your wells drying up?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: We did quite a few extra bores in that year when the drought was on,

when the surface water disappeared and it wasn't disappearing down below.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: We started in 1962. We were carrying water by tankers in 1976. [NOTE:

Then we began drilling in the early 80s.]

18. Majority ofboresbelowsea level - nosaline intrusion

DEPUTY RONDEL: You say you put a number of bores 400 to 600 feet. Given that the highest

point of the island is, I think, 460 feet or thereabouts, to the Northern Parishes, therefore the majority of the bores --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Are below sea level.

DEPUTY RONDEL: And no problem with saline?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: No, none at all. We had one right against cliffs. [NOTE: Several are 350 to

400 feet below sea level].

GEORGE LANGLOIS: There's one this last year 500 feet, 600 feet. Got two of them. They're

below seawater level and they're coming from east to west, so where do you think they're coming from?

DEPUTY RONDEL: If you take a map --

19. Trace undergroundstreams

GEORGE LANGLOIS: We can trace the streams across the land. I mean to say that's the most

favourable spot to put the bore down but it's mostly streams we trace and they're there. They're coming across from --

20. Mapofbores

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: We brought a couple of photographs if you'd like to pass them around.

There's a 4-inch and 6 inch one.

DEPUTY RONDEL: I notice from your photograph you've got different coloured pins in your site. LEWIS DE LA HAYE: The blue ones are the four inch.

DEPUTY RONDEL: Oh, right. And the red are --

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: And the red ones are six inch. There's a lot of others. We do lightning

conductors as well for airport systems and Waterworks company stations. Pumping stations So, some of the pins on there are white ones and yellow and are not picked out by the photo.

DEPUTY RONDEL: Could you raise your voice a little bit because they're having difficulty picking

it up on the tape.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Some of the pins on there you can't see. They're not visible. (several

inaudible words) doesn't include 2003 and 2004.

DEPUTY RONDEL: So, this is historical to 2002. Yes, Yes.

21. Rate of flow from bores

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Could you let us know and move to the other members that what's the

minimum/maximum you would expect from a bore between 400 to 600 feet, in terms of yield on gallons per hour?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: We're talking about 2,000 gallons to 2,500 gallons an hour.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Six inch, I presume.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Yes. But then now things change. We do it every day. You can now do

130 millimetre diameter, 5 inches (inaudible) and almost get the same but then that accepts a smaller pump and makes the job a little bit cheaper for the customer so we go for that sometimes. Then there's the kind of water that we get down in places like the golf courses. [NOTE: 6000 to 8000 GPH]

22. Costs of drilling

SENATOR VIBERT: Thank you. What is the cost of actually drilling down to say --

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Drilling can, once again, diameter 4 inches about 29.25 a metre. 150 mill is

55.25 a metre. It's all down to fuel mostly. If we get a rise on fuel then obviously costs also rise.

SENATOR VIBERT: Is it possible to say what the average cost is, in round figures?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: A borehole of 300 foot. This is talking about the bore in, pump, supply and

installation down the hole, so that's the whole shebang. [NOTE: pressure/vessel, plumbing in, well-head construction, trenching to property, clearing debris from the site etc] Works out about £7,000 to 8,000.

SENATOR VIBERT: So, the idea that was put to us that the water was free needs to be set

against a little bit here.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: The bore and the maintenance and the pump and everything else.

23. Drilling deeper levels

DEPUTY HILL: A few questions you can answer between you. This perception that you're going

deeper because we're getting short of water. We'd better say this is just perception you're going deeper because of the requirements of the

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Of the quality of the water.

DEPUTY HILL: Yes, but also because of the demands of the particular house. So, you could --

I'm speaking from experience and I declare an interest because Mr de la Haye, I'm quite happy to say, I have no problems with what he's done for me some years ago. But I am talking from personal experience because the experience I had with Mr de la Haye and what we're saying is that the fact that you go deeper, not because there wasn't any water there but you have to find -- you have to go deeper to ensure you can get the type -- the quality of water and also the amount of water for the household.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: We'll go through the surface water, then into an area where there is

no water until we get down to the streams or the deep underground ones.

They could be 200 to 300 depth, up to 600 feet, whatever you like. DEPUTY HILL: But the point I am making is not because we are short of water it's because of the

fact -- I think it's an important point to make because there is a perception that

we're going deeper simply because we haven't not any left.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: No.

DEPUTY HILL: But that will obviously dispel that theory.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: It depends on the depths of the streams.

DEPUTY HILL: Yes, that's fine. Okay.

24. Undergroundstreams affected bymoon

GEORGE LANGLOIS: They don't come all across the same depth. It depends on the layer of

rock and how it works and how the cracking in the rocks and the way it is to get the water across.

DEPUTY HILL: The reason I'm asking about that is I'm aware of the answers but I think it's

important for evidence that what you're saying is --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: The other thing that pulls the water across -- and I'm not being daft by

saying this, is the moon. It also works the sea as well. The tides up and down. It's the moon that does it but it also helps -- it's amazing it gets a pull on the water and pulls it through.

25. Groundwaterconnexion with France

DEPUTY HILL: Just elaborating on that. How far could the water come? You're talking about this

great big base(?) that we have under Jersey but could it come as far as France, or Switzerland, or beyond?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: We've gone right through in Normandy to an area called La Petite Suisse

which is the back of (several inaudible words) where some quite high hills and

deep valleys and the pull of water, and some of our water comes from that area. DEPUTY HILL: Sorry, could I elaborate? Would you say the water in Jersey comes from how

far? Or could come as far --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Some of it is coming from 60/70 miles.

DEPUTY RONDEL: And how long would it take to travel 60 or 70 miles, Mr Langlois?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Depends on whether the moon's full or not.

DEPUTY RONDEL: Right I can understand that. I understand a bit about navigation and the pull

of the moon but --

26. SussexWater Authority experimentinPyrenees

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: In 1984 Water Authority Sussex (several inaudible words) believed that

three of the wells - not boreholes, the old-fashioned wells, had water that wasn't from around the area.

It was the geologist had analysed the granules of sand and rock at the bottom and they thought that it came from the Pyrenees and they water engineers quite a big group of them to the area and introduced ion particles to the water sources in the mountains and having done that it took four years continually analysing the water in those wells and they found the same particles they'd introduced in the streams in 1984, four years later. So, it was true then beyond doubt that water travelled for a long way but it took a while - 1988.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Again from east to west (inaudible) with the pull of the moon.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: That was one of the members of the water board that told me several years

ago.

27. Lack ofrecognitionoveryears

SENATOR VIBERT: You said in your opening remarks, Mr Langlois, that you didn't feel that you'd

been given proper recognition or notice taken of your views by the --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Do you want to read some of those?

SENATOR VIBERT: I was going to ask you if you'd be able to leave --

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Do you want me to leave you that and you'd read it through?

SENATOR VIBERT: We would like you to leave the file.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Because you can see what we've had to put up with over the years.

SENATOR VIBERT: Thank you. We'd like that.

28. RomanMap

GEORGE LANGLOIS: You may have that and read it. There's one thing. I also deal in maps and

I do very ancient maps and this is one when Jersey and Guernsey and (inaudible) and one Jersey was in one and the Minquiers was an island and it has Roman markings on it where the roman camps were. The Romans always put their camps where the water was because they were the finest water diviners in the world and you can see (several inaudible words) and that's got the Roman triangles are the markings where their camps were.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: That map -- you can pass that around to everyone. It started -- that was

when we separated, or just before we separated from France. [NOTE: about 8000 years ago].

29. Planned boreholeonLesEcrehous

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: Can I ask a question of Mr de la Haye? We have heard today about the

plans for a borehole on the Ecrehous (inaudible) and I happened to notice in the evidence which we received that (I think it was the TA) had actually at one time

agreed to supply a helicopter for transporting the rig but the deal fell apart. I presume because they

couldn't lift it. Could you tell us how big your -- what is your smallest drill rig? I mean, how big is it? How much does it weigh?

MR DE LA HAYE: That weighs about half a ton. [NOTE: The smallest adequate compressor

available equals 2 and a half tonne.]

SENATOR VIBERT: Following up on that, do you believe there's water on the Ecrehous?

MR DE LA HAYE: Yes. [NOTE: Monks lived in the Priory. The ruins still exist.]

GEORGE LANGLOIS: So do I.

SENATOR VIBERT: Well, I mean, we know there's a well there that supplies water but (inaudible)

borehole would produce meaningful quantities of water. How deep would it be? LEWIS DE LA HAYE: About 150 foot

SENATOR VIBERT: How deep do you think you might have to drill?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: You'd have a flow at a hundred foot if you want it [NOTE: as a useful supply

probably 160 to 180 feet].

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Could I give you a little reading of the Ecrehous?

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Yes, certainly.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: "Ecrehous spring. I've seen it. It's from myself. I refer to ML Gibbs' letter

about water on the Ecrehous in which he, or she, claimed that springs do not exist. I can give the location of a good spring that exists and has been running for hundreds of years and may continue to do so. It is located between Mr Bilither's(?) house and the slip, about half the distance between the two on 24- foot tidemark above low water. There is a patch of green algae. Just remove the pebbles and below is a crack in the rock where fresh water bubbles come out all day long.

When Alphonse Le Gastelois, the King of the Ecrehous lived there, he was often seen

with a foot pump and two plastic water cans and a small pipe that he used to push down the crack and get all the drinking water he needed. I know of two other springs like that down there but the above is the easiest to get at and its existence can be confirmed by Captain Doug Parks. Many people know of the existence of that particular spring. The monks must've used it hundreds of years ago because the old pump well would not have supplied their drinking water all the time.

As for being (inaudible - reading from document) of the geography of the Ecrehous I'll

leave that up to the readers to judge and as for the book that has been printed I suggest a look at the facts before printing"

SENATOR VIBERT: When was that?

GEORGE LANGLOIS: That I did about ten years ago and it's still -- because when Dougie Parks

used to go out with a States tug and take food to Alphonse, they never took water. They didn't have to. He got all his fresh water there and it's been

running for hundreds of years and in the old days when the Ecrehous was a lot bigger that was inland.

It's only underwater now because they've got smaller and smaller to the rocks. But that is there.

We, at the time of these letters in here going back to the Agriculture Committee at

Trinity , when we offered to bore one down on Lewis 's property, we were going to do the bore, we were going to find the water, and we offered to do it free for the States. The army came in at the time and offered us a landing craft, which can be checked and authenticated. They were going to do it as an exercise and actually the landing craft came in the island, was in the harbour, and it was cancelled at the last moment because we might upset the birds on the island. And that was the excuse it was stopped. And we were going to do it for nothing and hand it over to the States. Isn't that right? And that's the sort of opposition we've been getting for years.

Yes, because British Geological Survey would not admit, or didn't want to admit, that

there was any water coming in from anywhere else but the skies. That's what we've had to put up with all the years. We go to France, we go to Normandy, we can work over there as professionals and we get greeted over here, they don't want to know us, some places. It's politics and money, that's the one I tell them. As I say, British Geological Survey have been paid tens of thousands of pounds, certain civil servants like it because they get a nice job and they'll go along with it on purpose. They won't admit there's water deep down and yet we've got over 5,000 bores in the island. They're deep and they supply water.

30. NoDerogationofneighbouringboreholes

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Thank you very much for that, Mr Langlois.

Could we ask also whether you've had experience of drilling boreholes either in a cluster or close to others which have caused the level to be affected, and if so --

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: (several inaudible words) and down the road from the Trinity main road in

the Highfield Estate, I think they call it. Yes we did 15 in there and nobody has been back to say they'd run out of water.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: And they're all about the same depth are they, pretty well?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: More or less, give or take about 20 foot, that's all.

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Yes, I think I can see the cluster that you're talking about.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Yes, you can see the blue ones.

31. Domesticboreholesfeeding a numberofproperties

DEPUTY RONDEL: On a domestic borehole that were feeding a number of properties, what is the

maximum amount of properties you'd put on one unit, one bore?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Well, the one in Hastings Road was doing 37 flats for bank staff, with a 1

HP pump, 200 foot. It's now doing 21, the bank's sold some flats recently.

GEORGE LANGLOIS: There's one stream up Victoria Village we did last year, didn't we, and I did

the stream across the fields, you did the bore. There's enough water in that stream to supply the whole of Victoria Village.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: We could supply a lot of houses from the one bore. The thing is, what

decides it quite often is how the property is owned. If the houses are going to be owned by different people they're not too keen on buying and having to maintain or share the cost of, you know, maintaining one bore. So very often they'll go for the one each, smaller, rather than having to have words and bad feeling later on and so it depends. Such is the case of the flats and it was the bank - one ownership so one borehole.

And the other thing that's sometimes bad is carwashes, which we've done also in St

Helier, and the Waterworks would -- rather than risk reducing the pressure on the hotels and houses around the place when the carwash is working, they usually tell the garage owner to make alternative arrangements.

32. Demand for commercialboreholes

DEPUTY HILL: We've heard quite a lot of the amount of boreholes you're doing for domestic, is

there much demand now for commercial ?

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Not as much as it was.

DEPUTY HILL: There's not, no. Like greenhouses, farming, etc,

GEORGE LANGLOIS: But that is very much now a thing of the past.

LEWIS DE LA HAYE: Hotels. [NOTE: Still occasional enquiry}

33. Examplesofbores with strong flow rate

GEORGE LANGLOIS: Yes, but a lot of hotels in the country and quite a lot of big farms. I'll give

you an ordinary farm for instance. [named farm] at Le Hurel, he had a couple of bores put down. They said to him, no water, no money, and they thought the water ran down the whole hill, and two bores were put down and they got no water, did they? So we were called on the scene and across the road between Mr XX's greenhouses on the front, there's water down there, it'd run from a stream and it goes into XXX. It came from behind the XXX Laundry, 305 feet down, and the water's been flowing over the ground now for eight years. He's got a pipe running down his driveway and it goes into the brook and down the slip and off the hole and out to the beach. And that water's been running now for a good eight years and there's no shortage of water.

And there's one, it's a stream, again east to west, the yellow part is tapped. The XXX