Hawke’s Bay Dairies Ltd received a $2,500 fine for a breach of their resource consent in the Environment Court today, following action brought by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.

The dairy company declined to provide required effluent monitoring reports from May to November 2007. At the time they had a court case pending for an earlier illegal discharge of effluent, and the decision to withhold the monthly reports, required by the terms of their consent, was based on legal advice.

Since that time, HB Dairies and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council have been having discussions to arrive at a more effective monitoring regime.

Judge Thompson commented that the parties were to be commended for this approach, and he would err on the side of encouraging the Council and the company to have a clean start with a much better regime.

He commented that the breach of consent was an unusual situation, a one-off situation, and although the penalty would be significantly lower than otherwise, he still wanted to send a signal that charges of this kind are to be treated seriously. He fined HB Dairies Ltd $2500.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council will be issuing a new resource consent to HB Dairies with the new monitoring regime next week.

To read the original article online, click here.