MEDIA RELEASE

High level of dairy effluent non-compliance in Lake Rotorua catchment
For immediate release: 29 October 2009

A number of dairy farmers in the Lake Rotorua catchment are likely to face enforcement action following a recent dairy effluent audit that showed 50 percent of the 32 sites that were inspected had serious compliance issues. A number of abatement notices have already been served.

The picture was vastly different in the other lake catchments (Lake Rerewhakaaitu, Lake Okaro) which had no sites with major non-compliance and only had three sites requiring follow-up.

Regulation Monitoring and Operations Committee Chairman Malcolm Whitaker said it was the worst monitoring results recorded in the last six seasons of monitoring and councillors were greatly aggrieved at the results, considering the effort that Environment Bay of Plenty, together with the Te Arawa Lakes Trust and Rotorua District Council, are putting into protecting and restoring the Rotorua lakes.

“It was extremely disappointing that such a high level of serious non compliance was discovered and that the compliance for the Lake Rotorua catchment in particular was extremely poor and clearly the worst out of the sites visited,” Councillor Whitaker said.

“Some councillors were quite stunned especially having listened to a large number of farmers who submitted to our Ten Year Plan about how well they were performing.”

“The financial contribution that the non-farming community of Rotorua is contributing through their rates to protecting and restoring the lakes gives them every right to be equally disappointed at the poor compliance levels,” he said.

“Despite the audit being carried out during a wet spring and all the recent focus around nutrients reaching Lake Rotorua, this is a very puzzling outcome. The audit indicates that farmers need to pay more attention to managing their effluent during the pressure times of the year,” Councillor Whitaker said.

Environment Bay of Plenty Group Manager Water Management Eddie Grogan said the unannounced audit was carried out over two weeks in late August and early September, during a period of wet weather while also coinciding with calving. This was in addition to routine annual compliance monitoring.

“With the high public and political interest in the Rotorua lakes area, we decided to audit all of the dairy sheds in the whole catchment, as opposed to only a selection, and at a time when weather and farm pressures such as calving would be putting stress on the farms’ effluent management.”

He said staff inspected all aspects of each farm’s effluent treatment and/or disposal systems, including inspecting effluent sumps, location of stormwater diversion systems, feed pad and stand off pads, effluent irrigation systems, and checking for signs of seepage from effluent ponds

“The main issues seemed to be a lack of contingency within the effluent systems for managing effluent during periods of rainfall, saturated soils and/or pressure farming periods i.e. calving. This meant that during these high risk times effluent was not being managed appropriately resulting in uncontrolled and illegal discharges. Substandard maintenance of systems was also a factor in the elevated levels of non-compliance,” Mr Grogan said.
“The farming community need to remember that it is the community that give them the licence to operate and that there is an expectation that they are compliant with consent requirements all of the time. A number of consents in the Rotorua Lakes area are coming up for review in the next two years and this is an ideal opportunity to ensure that environmental protection standards expected in the 21st century are being met.”
Environment Bay of Plenty has two soil moisture monitoring stations at Oturoa Road, Rotorua and at Lake Okaro that are available on its website to assist farmers in identifying when conditions are appropriate to irrigate.
Mr Grogan said Environment Bay of Plenty staff would be discussing these results with both DairyNZ and Fonterra.

ENDS.

Additional Information

Compliance levels for the two audit days
Catchments / Full compliance / Non-compliance low risk / Non-compliance high risk / Major non-compliance
Lake Rotorua (32 sites) / 44% / 6% / 34% / 16%
Lake Rerewhakaaitu and Ōkaro (36 sites) / 81% / 11% / 8% / 0%

Examples of “non-compliance low risk” might be excessive weed growth reducing the storage capacity of a pond system, or where a management plan (or similar) has not been forwarded in accordance with the requirements of the consent. These non-compliances are considered to only have minor or no adverse environmental effects.

Examples of “non-compliance high risk” might be pond levels being less than the minimum freeboard required resulting in a risk of pond overflow to surface waters, or where a pond was overflowing to land where there was a risk of continued overflow resulting in effluent reaching surface waters. “Non-compliance high risk” sites required a second visit to ensure that any issues identified had been addressed.

Some examples of “major non-compliance” include; where a storage pond or holding sump is overflowing into a watercourse; where an irrigator is operating too close to a watercourse where effluent can, or is, entering it; or, where substantial pond overflow had occurred causing significant ponding on land. These non-compliances always receive a re-visit. Major non-compliances often result in some form of enforcement action being undertaken, whether it is by way of serving an abatement or infringement notice, or in extremely serious cases, by undertaking a prosecution.

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