Friday, March 29, 2024

Councils say criticism is unfair

Neal Wallace
A Forest and Bird report critical of how dairy farm resource consents are managed is misleading, regional councils say.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Council leaders said they found numerous errors in the report compiled from information gathered from regional councils for the 2016-17 year from Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests.

This information was used to rate councils according to how well they carried out compliance, monitoring and enforcement of dairy farm consents.

Forest and Bird said councils are inconsistent, especially related to seriously non-compliant farms, defined by an environmentally damaging activity occurring or likely to occur because of poor practice.

It also said about 5000 farms nationally, 3350 of them in Waikato, were not monitored for dairy effluent compliance in that year.

Environment Southland was rated E but its policy, planning and regulatory services directore Vin Smith, dismissed accusations the council did not know how many consented dairy farms are in the region, saying there were 899.

The ambiguity arose about whether three others were dairy farms, being herds of less than 20 cows, making them a permitted activity under council rules.

“The reality is that this is as much around the interpretation of the information provided as it is the facts that we provided,” he said.

Forest and Bird also claimed Environment Southland and other councils gave farmers 24 hours’ notice before an inspection and didn’t follow up all significant non-compliance issues.

Smith that was not the case in Southland, where typically, farmers were advised 15 to 20 minutes before an inspection and all significant breaches are followed up.

Last year the council prosecuted six dairy farmers, issued 91 abatement notices, 22 formal warnings and 39 infringement notices.

Smith and Waikato Regional Council resource use director Chris McLay said had Forest and Bird allowed a peer review of its report the errors would have been discovered.

Waikato was graded F and McLay said contrary to claims the council did not take any prosecutions during the period under review, it took four and issued more than 180 enforcement actions.

“While no one likes to be rated poorly I am confident we are doing a good job. 

“The Waikato farming sector is well aware that when we find non-compliance we hold people to account.

“Only in the past week a Waikato farming company was convicted and fined $41,000 for environmental breaches. 

“That is a clear message in anyone’s books,” he said.

“We are at a place now where a significant portion of the farming population have or are attempting to improve their systems and working with them one-on-one has helped,” McLay said.

McLay and Horizons Regional Council chief executive Michael McCartney said giving 24 hours notice of a visit enables staff to meet those who make decisions on farms.

McCartney, who is also the convenor of the regional council chief executive’s group, acknowledged councils are open to scrutiny but there was no clarity about how Forest and Bird would use the data or an opportunity to peer review its findings and as result there were numerous errors, including claims made about his council.

The organisation gave Horizons a D, accusing it of not following up 18 significant non-compliance breaches, a fact McCartney said was wrong.

In the 2016-17 year it pursued 26 cases of significant non-compliance, issued 10 infringement notices and 21 abatement notices. Some farms had more than one compliance breach.

He said he was not being defensive but the report needs balancing.

“I think some of that needs clarity.”

McCartney said 95% of farmers in his region are compliant and frequency of council inspections is based on risk, the proximity to sensitive catchments and compliance history.

A recognised top operator with modern, well performing infrastructure is visited less regularly.

Local Government NZ regional chairman Doug Leeder said councils, the Minister for the Environment and Ministry for the Environment are looking at councils’ performance on compliance, monitoring and enforcement.

“The minister, ministry and councils all wanted satisfaction that all that can practically be done is being done.”

Leeder said risk, topography, environment, climate and the type of consent issued should determine the frequency of monitoring, not statutory annual visits as advocated by Forest and Bird.

Councils need to be practical.

He gave the example of a Bay of Plenty council requirement that effluent ponds maintain at least a 30cm freeboard.

In extended wet weather when irrigation is not possible, enforcement of that rule is not practical.

Forest and Bird also claimed the collection of data and the Ministry for the Environment’s reporting of national compliance monitoring and enforcement is inadequate.

But it did offer tentative praise to the dairy sector.

“While there have been many meaningful improvements in reducing dairy effluent pollution entering waterways there is still significant work to be done. 

“To date most councils have been unable to achieve 100% legal compliance for dairy effluent disposal.”

The document said councils reporting annually against the Dairy Accord goals is the only national report on industry compliance, which is insufficient.

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