Bay of Plenty dairy farmers were reminded of the serious penalties for polluting after four were prosecuted last week for various degrees of contamination to waterways.The two businesses and three individuals (3 eastern Bay, 1 western Bay) were sentenced last week in the Environment Court in Tauranga.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council Water Management Group Manager Eddie Grogan said these prosecutions showed us that some farmers in our region were still not carrying out the necessary checks.

“All four dairy cases were a result of poor management of effluent systems, including ponds and irrigators,” Mr Grogan said.

The two companies and three farmers received significant fines totalling more than $118,000, which reflected the recent increase in penalties available to the Environment Court after an amendment to the Resource Management Act. (Read on …)

New Zealand and Australia will work to integrate their emissions trading schemes to create a bigger and more efficient trans-Tasman carbon market.

The implementation of the ETS schemes in both countries was a key issue at annual talks between Finance Minister Bill English and his Australian counterpart, Treasurer Wayne Swan, in Wellington yesterday.

The talks aimed to move ahead long-running negotiations to create a single economic market.

Australia’s new ETS will tax its 500 worst polluters A$23 (NZ$29.50) for every tonne of carbon they produce from next July. (Read on …)

Pure Advantage, a group fostering a green growth strategy for New Zealand, was launched in Auckland yesterday.

Chaired by Rob Morrison, its trustees are among some the best-known names in business: Sir George Fistonich, Rob Fyfe, Chris Liddell, Philip Mills, Jeremy Moon, Lloyd Morrison, Geoff Ross, Justine Smyth, Sir Stephen Tindall and Joan Withers.

It’s looking to sign up members – thousands, preferably – on the grounds that the more it has, the more likely politicians are to listen to it.

Potential supporters can find it on its website and on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – indications that it’s looking to attract a wider, and younger membership than a traditional business organisation.

New Zealand’s clean, green brand is valuable but vulnerable, given the gap between rhetoric and reality, Rob Morrison says. “We can’t afford to let our reputation, and consequently our exporters, suffer for lack of environmental leadership. (Read on …)

Lake Taupo consent rules to take effect next month

The Environment Court has now formally approved a new Waikato Regional Council policy aimed at protecting water quality in Lake Taupo, meaning farmers around the lake will need to apply for a resource consent to continue farming.

The implementation of the policy – known as Variation 5 to the Waikato Regional Plan – has been going on for some time, with a considerable amount of work already done by the council and farmers. However, finalising the policy has been awaiting sign off from the court following appeals by several parties who eventually came to agreement on the wording.

Now, following the Environment Court’s formal endorsement of the policy, the variation is due to become fully operative on 7 July. (Read on …)

Environment Southland will send copies of its compliance incident list to dairy industry stakeholders at the request of a councillor who believed they should be aware of the scale of the problem the council is trying to tackle.

At an environmental management committee meeting this week councillor Jan Riddell said the incident list provided by the compliance division showed about 50 per cent of the complaints were in response to dairy farming. (Read on …)

Waituna dairy farm manager Kevin Belling and his wife Rhonda Raymond-Williams have each been convicted and fined in the Invercargill District Court for four breaches of the Resource Management Act last September and October.
Two of the charges related to separate incidents where dairy effluent had ponded on their property after being sprayed from a travelling irrigator, and may have entered a watercourse. Another charge related to sludge and effluent from a concrete race flowing through a hole in a wall into a ditch, which fed into a tributary of the Waituna Stream. The fourth charge concerned dead cows being dumped in a hole in circumstances where they would have contaminated groundwater.
Mr Belling accepted responsibility for the offences and Judge Jane Borthwick fined him a total of $60,000 plus court costs – $20,000 and $25,000 on the charges relating to the failed travelling irrigator and $7,500 on each of the other two charges. Raymond-Williams, who owns the property and holds the resource consent for discharging effluent, was fined $1,500 plus costs on each charge. (Read on …)

Less than a year after being defeated by strong public opposition, the mining industry is planning another bid to gain access to minerals lying beneath the conservation estate, leading industry figures have indicated.

Labour MP David Parker yesterday said “senior” mining industry sources had told him they planned to seek an increase in the size of pockets of Schedule Four land, which may be used for mining related activities.

Under current law, miners could obtain permits to allow “interference” on Schedule Four land restricted to areas 10m by 10m. (Read on …)

Environment Minister Nick Smith this morning said new environmental protection laws dealing with New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone, much of which is earmarked for oil exploration, will come into effect in July next year.

Dr Smith’s announcement comes just a few weeks after Navy and the Police arrested protesters who were disrupting Brazilian company Petrobras’ exploration activity in the Raukumara basin which lies within the EEZ off East Cape.

The new law will make the Environmental Protection Authority responsible for issuing consents, monitoring and enforcement of activities within the EEZ which lies from 12km to 200km offshore and the Extended Continental Shelf, which extends beyond the EEZ. (Read on …)