Record fine for dairy effluent a ‘wake-up call’

A Waikato farming company, a company director and a farm manager have been convicted and fined a combined $305,900 for unlawful discharges of dairy effluent into the environment, and contravention of abatement notices, on numerous occasions between August 2022 and June 2023. 

Flint Farms Limited, farm owner Barry Flint and farm manager Gavin Flint were 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 Waikato Regional Council.

This is the largest fine for discharging contaminants into the environment in the Waikato region since the Resource Management Act was introduced over 30 years ago.

In addition to the fines, Judge Dickey issued an Enforcement Order against Flint Farms Limited requiring them to upgrade the farm effluent system and implement an effluent management plan to avoid further adverse effects on the environment.

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 defendants by the council to prevent further discharges into the environment. However, during follow up inspections over the next 10 months, additional breaches were identified.

“It’s 2024. There simply can be no tolerance for not having adequate infrastructure on farm to manage animal effluent,” said Waikato Regional Compliance Manager Patrick Lynch. “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 is installed, that should have been in place decades ago, is incredibly disappointing. 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.”   

Waikato Regional Council officer inspecting stock underpass.

Waikato Regional Council officer sampling contamination.