We wish to clarify comments made by farmers which were included in the report entitled ‘A grave disagreement’ (The Sunday Times, February 26) regarding the planned extension to the Nadur cemetery.

Your report refers to the claim made by local farmers that the amount of water discharged by the spring has increased in winter and has decreased significantly in summer, that is when they need it most.

Nadur parish finds this statement surprising. Since construction works on the cemetery were undertaken, this is the first time the farmers are claiming that the flow of water in winter has actually increased.

Indeed, in their sworn declarations filed before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal, they gave a completely different picture. One of the farmers reported that during the past three years water from the spring had stopped flowing completely, another highlighted that it had been reduced by two-thirds while another noted that it diminished by half.

Secondly, a comparative exercise between aerial photos taken in March 2007 and June 2011 reveals that there has been no change in the characteristics of the area and the arability of the land in question. It should be noted that in March 2007 the development application of the cemetery had not yet been approved.

From an analysis of the photos, it is quite obvious that farmers continued tilling the land (most of which is government-owned and not private) and growing produce as they had done in previous years.

Further examination of the photos confirms that between 2007 and 2011 trees were planted in the same fields. These are indicated by means of an arrow in the above photograph.

One cannot understand how the farmers managed to plant these trees while maintaining that the spring which provided a constant water supply had dried up or that its flow has decreased.

The report also refers to what Marco Cremona had to say about this issue after having tested samples of spring water provided by the farmers themselves. Mr Cremona surprisingly contends that he cannot understand how anyone could be able to tamper with a groundwater supply to fake its contamination. But in fact it is very easy to tamper with such samples.

Rather than relying on the samples provided, Mr Cremona should have taken the samples himself just as the Nadur parish expert did.

The allegation that no control water samples were taken is also factually incorrect. Samples were taken by the expert from sources further downstream and which are fed by the catchment area which includes the cemetery site.

Tests were conducted both before the approval of the full development application as well as over the past weeks. The samples taken recently confirm that there was actually an overall improvement in water quality.

Furthermore, it should be stressed that the water table is located 27 metres beneath the maximum lower level of the excavated cemetery site. Were the development to negatively affect the water table, the Malta Resources Authority would not have given the go-ahead for this development.