Divining intervention – some swear by it, others not so sure
Does using two pieces of No 8 wire to find underground pipes or cables sound weird?
Divining (or dowsing) is typically associated with finding water, but Carterton District Council’s operations manager, Garry Baker, was put onto finding underground pipes and cables by an engineer he worked with at Waipawa District Council in the 1980s.
‘‘It’s not fail-safe, because there have been occasions when it hasn’t worked, but 90 per cent of the time it has indicated the presence of the pipe or cable we were looking for,’’ he said.
‘‘I use two pieces of No 8 wire. I don’t really know how it works but it has done on so many occasions that I think there is something in it. We have the Geographical Information System (GIS) these days so it isn’t something we rely on or anything.
‘‘A lot of people know someone who used to do some sort of divining, though it is something that is being lost these days.
‘‘I was talking to a couple of older ladies in Greytown the other day who recalled someone they knew doing it when they were young.
‘‘For us, before something like GIS, it was a really handy way of finding things when we didn’t have a precise location marked.’’
GNS Science engineering geologist Zane Bruce said the reason divining appeared to work was most likely because people either had subconscious knowledge or a fair idea because of work experience.
Dowsing had been shown up several times over the years with dowsers unable to locate things underground in situations that had been specially prepared, he said.
‘‘In my experience, when I’m identifying underground services, I rely on maps and archives, and if I have no maps and archives, then I use handheld metal detectors, ground resistivity surveys, or magnetometer surveys.
‘‘I would raise quite an eyebrow at anyone regularly managing to successfully find their target with just a simple pair of dowsing rods.
‘‘I do take my hat off to my grandfather, who dowsed for water very successfully around the mid-Canterbury foothills, a groundwater rich gravel plain, but he was only doing it in return for whiskey.’’