From Brian Hotton.
IN his letter (JEP, 18 February) ‘A blizzard of blunders at Bellozanne’, Professor Demaid asks: ‘How did the States get it so wrong?’

I would say that they got it wrong because the majority of States Members do not, or did not, understand what they were actually voting for. On the face of it they were voting to place an incinerator at La Collette and most saw it as either a yes or no vote. The professor says that our politicians are ‘neither malign nor naive’.

This can be answered by the set-up of Jersey’s political system with 53 individuals, said by some to be 53 independent parties — which, of course, they are. I would say that some of them are very naive; that is, they are not expert. And as for malign, again some are, in that their decisions are damaging to the people of this Island.

Most of our politicians are not capable of understanding the complexities of all the research that is placed in front of them. You may well say that the politicians are backed up by their civil servants, so they should be well advised. I am afraid that this is not the case.

A few nights ago I saw a vacancy advertised for a civil service post which stated that the applicants were required to have five GCSEs and two A-levels, as this was quite an exacting job. I well remember when the usual advertisement for a civil service post carried the prerequisite of five GCEs at grade C or above.

What is worrying me is this: How many of Jersey’s civil servants with their five GCSEs at grade C or above have got to the top of the civil service and are now advising our politicians on such things as the incinerator? Professor Demaid really ought to know that ‘a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing’.

I actually heard a minister, when debating the new emergency road to be built at La Collette, say that the road could only be used when the tide was out. Yes, a minister! On the same page as the professor’s letter, Alan Le Breton was saying that it is too late to stop La Collette incinerator. Of course it is not.

He also cites the Chief Medical Officer of Health and her assurances ‘that the emissions will meet current EU health standards’. Yes, current emissions, but what about the future?

In closing, Professor De-maid asks us rather light-heartedly to Google ‘Isle of Man incinerator’. All I can say is that their design would be more fitting at La Collette with its rolling roofs similar to the rolling roofs on the flats on the Albert Quay. It would be more fitting than the proposed ‘iconic Acropolis’.

However, more importantly, an article in the Manx Herald of 4 August 2008 states: ‘The euphem-istically entitled “energy-from-waste” plant has, in the last week, finally resumed producing electricity; following nearly eight months of down time while a turbine fault was repaired.’ Imagine no incinerator here in Jersey for eight months!

Also the article refers to ‘fly ash’ and goes on to talk about ‘approximately 50 one-ton bags, in loads of ten to 20, depending on vehicle size . . . The entire volume will then be shipped, once a year, to its final disposal destination, which is planned to be Norway’.

Have the States taken the cost of this into cons-ideration? Knowing them, I am not so sure. And where is it going to be kept until shipped?
66 Stopford Road,
St Helier.