Farm effluent still an issue in Rotorua

More Rotorua farms are meeting requirements for discharging effluent.
In 2010, 68 per cent of Rotorua farms inspected by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council were fully compliant with effluent discharge requirements on their resource consents, compared with 44 per cent in 2009. The number of significantly non-compliant farms dropped from 50 per cent to just 12 per cent.
To be rated as significantly non-compliant a farm must have discharged effluent into a water body such as a lake or river, or seriously breached consent that could result in a discharge to water.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council pollution prevention team leader Steve Pickles said to be fully compliant, farms needed to follow the requirements on their resource consents about how to store and discharge effluent.
He said resource consent requirements varied, but often required farms to hold effluent in storage ponds before using it to irrigate land, and in Rotorua those ponds had to be lined.
However, Bay of Plenty Regional Council Group water management manager Eddie Grogan said overall there had been a drop in performance across the Bay of Plenty region.
He said of the 354 dairy sites inspected, only 72 per cent were fully compliant in 2010, compared with 79 per cent the year before.
Mr Grogan said the increased level of significant non-compliance in the Bay of Plenty was most concerning for this year's compliance inspection with 47 cases, 13 per cent, reported.
"We are witnessing the same repeated issues of non-compliance; irrigators and ponds are not being managed properly due to lack of gear maintenance, lack of staff training, and certainly lack of pond storage," Mr Grogan said.
He said an effort had been made to improve Rotorua's compliance rate.
"A working party that was formed as a result of the 2009 Rotorua audit appears to have been successful in changing behaviours and getting agreement on accepted practices," Mr Grogan said.
"It is clear that we have a long way to go with Bay of Plenty farmers to achieve our goal of 100 per cent compliance.
"While it is good to see progress in some great initiatives, we need farmers to see the urgency and make compliance a priority with their farm management."