Jersey Water

Saw this letter in the JEP. My comments in italics; I've never seen such a mass of unverified speculation presented as fact (outside of the novels of Dan Brown):

 

JEC Letter

I cannot see why this water, abundant in France, should not come to Jersey under the Ecréhous
From Fred Newton.
31/01/07

BETWEEN the Lessay Basin and the coast, the French authorities have sunk a borehole, diameter two feet and depth 750 feet, bottom 200 feet x 12 inches diameter. There are two pumps installed five kilometres from the tower storage, and with booster pumps along that distance they are supplying 100,000 customers.

Mr Créance of the local water company in France requires 60 more boreholes for farm irrigation, paid for by the French government, and has offered 20 of these boreholes to Louis de la Haye, our local man, who has an excellent reputation for this particular type of drilling and who uses the correct drills for the job.

He could be employed in that area for years, but has regretfully turned down the offer as he has lots of work in Jersey and is fully employed. Had he accepted, no doubt George Langlois, the water diviner, would have accompanied him.

So I cannot see why this water, which is in abundance in France and is on the same course, should not come to Jersey under the Ecréhous basin and supply 50 per cent of our water supplies, as there are gallons of water stored under the Ecréhous.

 

Note the sneaky way in which the assumption is made that as there are large amounts of drillable of water in France at depth, there are "gallons of water stored under the Ecrehous". There is no evidence for this whatsoever; the book on the Ecrehous actually mentions the well running dry on one occasion. Maybe it does not go deep enough, but that doesn't mean that if it did there would be fresh water there.

This water supply has been traced from La Rocque to the Ecréhous, and then filters through to Jersey, and proves that this water is over 50 years old and has to come from deep underground supplies.

This is made up. No one has traced water supplies in this way, or shown that this "filters through to Jersey". There is no proof that the water is "over 50 years old" or "has" to come from underground supplies. How do you date water anyway? It doesn't have a "sell by" date on it!

A map of our area shows without doubt that the Ecréhous basin and the two in Normandy are affiliated, and they are directly opposite our Island of Jersey. There are no underground streams, but deep crevices, which the water travels through.

This statement about "deep crevices" is again, pure speculation. (And what is the difference between an underground stream, and water flowing underground through crevices? Surely that is the essence of an underground stream?)

And water does not flow from Switzerland, but Petite Suisse, which is an area in Normandy. Also, the full moon has a great influence, as it pulls the water from east to west and helps to a great degree to bring the water to Jersey from Normandy.

 

This is the first I've ever come across about the moon's influence on general water flow such as rivers or streams (as opposed to great oceans of vast mass)! The fact that there are areas like the Mediterranean, or around Denmark, when even large amounts of water experience no great tidal range, makes me very suspicious of such a statement! But - even if the moon could extend a quasi-tidal pull, then it would not be "east to west" but surely also "west to east". Hasn't Mr Newton observed that the tides go up and down! The moon's influence causes both directions of flow. But he may not have also noticed that it is high tide all around Jersey; this "east to west" statement seems to suggest that if tides are high in St Aubin, they'll be low at Greve De Lecq!