The number of dairy farms failing to comply with their consents for disposing of effluent in the Bay of Plenty is on the rise, and so too the number of cockies appearing in the Environment Court there.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has prosecuted eighty farmers in 2011 for failing to comply with effluent rules, and its Pollution Prevention manager, Nick Zaman, says the community will not tolerate such disregard for the protection of the environment.

Mr Zaman says while the vast majority of farmers have well managed effluent systems, a small minority do not take their responsibilities seriously, and their “she’ll be right” attitude doesn’t cut-it when they have such large herd sizes, and complex effluent systems. 

Last week, eastern Bay of Plenty’s Glenholme Farms dairy farm and its manager Paul Atkinson, were fined more than $50,000 for allowing effluent to discharge onto land, where it may have entered the water. 

The farm and its manager had ignored orders to fit fail-safe devices to their irrigator system and when it stalled effluent pooled in a paddock and flowed into a watercourse.

In other environmental dairy news Canterbury’s dairy farms came tops in a Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry survey showing 65 percent of dairy farms had their stock fenced off from waterways – compared to just 42 percent nationally.