Waikato farming company fined $305,900 for effluent discharges

A Waikato Regional Council officer inspects the stock underpass.

A Waikato farming company, a company director and a farm manager have been convicted and fined a combined $305,900 for multiple unlawful discharges of dairy effluent into the environment and contravention of abatement notices.

Flint Farms owner Barry Flint and farm manager Gavin Flint were convicted and sentenced by Hamilton District Court Judge Melinda Dickey this week on 14 charges under the Resource Management Act as a result of a prosecution taken by the Waikato Regional Council.

The offences took place between August 2022 and June 2023.

In a statement, Waikato Regional Council said it was the largest fine for discharging contaminants into the environment in the Waikato region since the Resource Management Act was introduced more than 30 years ago.

In addition to the fines, Judge Dickey issued an enforcement order against Flint Farms requiring it to upgrade its farm effluent systems and implement effluent management plans to avoid further adverse effects on the environment.

In August 2022, council officers conducted an inspection at the Ngātea dairy farm 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 defendants by the council to prevent further discharges into the environment.

During follow up inspections over the next ten months, additional breaches were identified.

A Waikato Regional Council officer sampling contamination.

Waikato Regional Council compliance manager Patrick Lynch said there simply could 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.

”This region has had clear rules in place for the last 30 years prohibiting this kind of activity.

“It is very concerning that we still find contamination like this, even after putting a farm formally on notice.”

To need a court order to ensure appropriate infrastructure was installed, that should have been in place decades ago, was “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.”