The Waikato Regional Council’s farm services team has inspected 232 «high risk» farms since July 1 as well as visiting lower risk farms throughout the region.
Of these 232, 34 had upgraded their facilities while 69 (29 per cent) were found to be significantly non-compliant. Those 69 farms included some who were significantly non-compliant from the previous season.
Council resource use director Chris McLay and farming services team leader Stuart Stone presented the findings at a Waikato Federated Farmers dairy section meeting in Hamilton this month.
While they emphasised the bulk of the region’s 4200 dairy farmers were outstanding with their compliance, there was still a minority performing poorly.
«We are going to properties and, I kid you not, we do see bathtubs, we do see holes in the ground with no [pond] lining at all,» Stone said.
«The data is not a surprise to us. We just haven’t had the ability to monitor these in the way that we have before with the ability to go to these farms unannounced.»
For the past two seasons, significant non-compliance sat at around 8-9 per cent and he expected the latest result to fall as more farms were monitored.
Stone said it was increasingly farmers who were reporting non-compliance.
«The farmers that are putting in the effort with infrastructure, they are really looking out for people that aren’t pulling their weight and giving the dairy industry a bad name.»
On a second farm which used tank storage, Council staff arrived to find effluent pouring out of the tank like, «waterfalls coming out of the top», and another farm, effluent was coming out onto a paddock like a spring from the ground, McLay said.
Other issues the council found included faulty irrigators, lack of storage, poorly managed stormwater diversion, poor staff training and using open pipes to pump effluent onto paddocks.
McLay said they estimated abut 800 of the region’s 4200 dairy farms fell into this ‘high risk’ category where the farms had seven days effluent storage or less.
«You have to put that into context, that’s more farms than most other dairy regions have in terms of dairy farms.»
Some farms had been visited three to four times since July 1 because issues were so serious. The Council planned on visiting 400 of these farms before July 1 next year as well as continuing normal monitoring activities, Stone said.
The new data comes after another Waikato farm was convicted and fined for discharging dairy effluent.
H & S Chisholm Farms Limited owned by Hugh and Sue Chisholm were fined $57,375 for two discharges of dairy effluent into the Waipā River from its Putaruru farm in mid-2017.
The sentence was imposed by Judge Melanie Harland from the Hamilton District Court on November 9.
The farm was lauded by Greenpeace last year for its use of solar panelling to power its dairy shed.
The prosecution was taken by Waikato Regional Council, under the Resource Management Act after a complaint from the public that a tributary of the Waipā Stream looked contaminated.
The council found an effluent holding pond overflowing in large volumes to the tributary.
Immediate steps were taken to stop the overflow. The council also issued an abatement notice, returning to the farm two weeks later to carry out a follow-up inspection.
On that visit they found the pond was no longer overflowing, however, dairy effluent was still entering the stream from an effluent irrigator in use on the farm.
Judge Harland noted that the company’s response to the incidents was «exemplary», with significant investment in effluent infrastructure on the farm following the pollution.
However, she said: «Dairy farmers in the Waikato region have had ample time to understand what is required to lawfully manage dairy effluent and to become educated about best practice, both in terms of the design, operation and management of effluent systems».
The Council’s investigation and incident response, resource use manager Patrick Lynch said the case was disappointing and «completely avoidable».
«They are repairing things after the fact when they should have had the infrastructure in place before it happened.»
