"As I have always said, most farmers in New Zealand have made and are continuing to make significant progress on protecting the environment and I want to ensure we stop this dirty tail end of farming," she said.
"We are so much better than this and it certainly shouldn't take regulations to clean up the dirty tail end of farming."
However, Federated Farmers provincial president Will Foley has maintained it is a minority of farmers who operate feedlots.
As there was no evidence at this stage, he said discussion of a link between feedlots and waterway pollution was very unfair to farmers.
"I haven't seen any specific evidence. There's been a lot of speculation and finger-pointing around the link but until we see some sort of evidence around that, I think it's unfortunate that those people have gone down that track."
Although it was hard to define a feedlot - as many were operated differently - he guessed there were around 10 "larger scale feedlots operations" running in the Central Hawke's Bay area - particularly in the Tukituki catchment.
He was not sure how many were operating closer to Hastings.
These larger scale lots were typically a piece of land set aside which farmers used during the winter, where cattle would be given "intensive feeding or diet mixes".
"It's a really simple system of feeding cattle other than grazing on pasture," he said. "They generally do that type of operation and it could be anywhere from a rough average around 500 cattle as a size plus or minus."
During winter, feedlots are used to keep cattle off pastures to stop damage to them - such as phosphate run-off, soil compaction, and other issues which could create harmful flow-on effects down the track, and implications to farmers' systems.
As grass does not grow well during the colder period, the intensive feeding on the lots ensure farmers can keep their cattle, and keep them well fed.
However, Mr Foley said as the risk of operating a feedlot was quite high due to its high cost, only a minority used them. Having only around 10 feedlots out of 400 farmers in CHB showed it was not a common practice.
Whatever the benefit to farmers, environmental scientist Mike Joy said concentration of cattle on a small area of land could have harmful consequences.
"When you get that situation where you've got hundreds of cows per hectare then you've got a massive concentration issue there of pollution that's going to get down into groundwater or directly into the river," he said.
"In feedlots, cattle compress the soil so much they make it absolutely impermeable ... it makes it like a big pan, so when there's rain the water will run straight off," he said.
The Massey University ecologist said effluent could also "leech down into the soil" after rainfall events, or it could seep deeper as cracks appeared in the ground after dry winters.
Feedlots close to rivers were more of a concern. In floods, it might take a river four hours "to get in proximity of effluent", but "that's nothing in the life of some pathogens", he said. And on feedlots located on old riverbeds, effluents can easily move through the "porous" alluvial gravel.
Although there were appropriate containment measures which could be implemented on feedlots - such as sealing them underneath, installing grating and a sloping concrete floor - Mr Joy said those in Mr Scott's photos were "clearly just paddock".
"When you mob stock like that in a paddock most of the nitrogen from urine is going down into the groundwater directly there's no seal on the bottom of it so it's just leaching out of the bottom of it," he said. "You can see those ones with the big lakes in them. They're the ones that, when the big rains come, that's just concentrated faeces and urine running straight off into the river."
When asked about the measures used to contain runoff from feedlots, Mr Foley said the rules farmers were subject to would not be any different to other farmers. They would have to prevent run-off contaminant affecting waterways, exclude stock from waterways, have a nutritional budget, and a farm environmental plan.
"They can't be seen to be contributing where the regional council is monitoring along the river. They can't be seen to be contributing to or exceeding limits downstream wherever the farms or feedlots in this case will be."
Under the regional resource management plan, feedlots are a permitted activity but must meet the rules outlined in the Regional Resource Management Plan. If a feedlot does not meet these conditions, a consent is required.
The council does not monitor feedlots that do not require a consent, but if a consent is required it will be monitored to ensure it is meeting the conditions of its consent.
The regional council were aware there was a "small minority" of farmers in the Tukituki catchment undertaking unsatisfactory farming practices.
However, council group manager resource management Iain Maxwell said they would have to lift their farming performance to meet best practice in future.
This would occur through a requirement for all farms to have nutrient budgets and farm environment management plans by 2018 and to have implemented them by 2020. Over the past couple of years the regional council has been working with farmers around these issues - taking a three stage approach. Mr Maxwell said this was firstly ensuring farmers were aware of the rules around operating feedlots, then giving them time to remedy any issues with their feedlots.
The final step was taking regulatory action against those continuing to breach the rules.
The council was now at the point where it would be informing farmers using feedlots that there would be zero tolerance to breaches of the rules in the future.
"Some farmers using feedlots have made positive changes, and others are working towards that, but we are now taking a zero tolerance to any ongoing non-compliance," he said.
As feedlots are a winter activity, farmers would have until mid-2017 to remedy any issues, before the council would "begin taking a hard line".
This news was welcomed by Ms Lorck, who said there was no place for exploiting any type of dirty farming practice in New Zealand.
"But for real change it will take farmers leading farmers, there are no excuses for these dirty feedlots," she said.
"Those farmers who are showing little regard or respect for our environment by operating these disgraceful feedlots are going to have to rattle their dags because the council and the public has put them on notice.
"This is progress and this is how we lead and create positive change to improve our water quality.
"What's more important than safe drinking water, swimmable rivers and protecting New Zealand's clean, green, GM free food producing, world leading reputation?"
Regional council chairman Fenton Wilson could not be reached for comment.