A Waikato Regional Council officer inspecting stock underpass. Photo: Waikato Regional Council
- Record combined fine for illegal effluent discharges
- Regional council takes prosecution to stop the discharging
- Judge issues enforcement order on Hauraki farm
A Waikato farming company, its director and manager have been convicted and fined a combined $305,900 for illegally discharging dairy effluent.
Flint Farms Limited, farm owner Barry Flint and farm manager Gavin Flint, were sentenced in the Hamilton District Court this week on 14 charges under the Resource Management Act (RMA).
The convictions and record fine were the result of a prosecution taken by Waikato Regional Council.
Waikato Regional Council officer sampling contamination. Photo: Waikato Regional Council
Council compliance manager Patrick Lynch said it was the largest fine for discharging contaminants into the environment in the Waikato region since the RMA was introduced over 30 years ago.
Lynch said the illegal discharging and contravention of abatement notices occurred numerous times between August 2022 and June last year.
In August 2022 council officers conducted an inspection at the dairy farm owned by the defendant at Ngātea, on the Hauraki Plains, south of Thames.
"They found numerous breaches of environmental regulation, related to the discharge of dairy effluent from two effluent ponds, a sump and a stock underpass."
Two abatement notices were issued to the Flints by the council to prevent further discharges into the environment.
"However, during follow up inspections over the next 10 months, additional breaches were identified."
Lynch said the actions were unacceptable.
"It's 2024. There simply can be no tolerance for not having adequate infrastructure on farm to manage animal effluent.
"This fine should be a sharp wake-up call for those farming operations who still have shoddy systems, or are not managing effluent systems properly."
He said rules prohibiting such activity were clear and had been in place for more than three decades.
"It is very concerning that we still find contamination like this, even after putting a farm formally on notice."
Judge Melinda Dickey also issued an enforcement order against Flint Farms Limited requiring it to upgrade the farm effluent system and implement an effluent management plan to avoid further adverse effects on the environment.
"To need a court order to ensure appropriate infrastructure is installed, that should have been in place decades ago, is incredibly disappointing," Lynch said.
"But those are the lengths we are having to go to in situations such as this to get some farming operations to do the right thing."