Blue Sky Meats fined $116,000

An Environment Court judge said it was ‘‘disturbing’’ that a Southland meat processing company was back in court for unlawfully discharging meatworks’ effluent.

Blue Sky Meats New Zealand Ltd was fined $116,250 for breaching the Resource Management Act by unlawfully discharging the effluent to land three times between February 2017 and September 2017.

At the Environment Court sentencing yesterday, Judge B.P Dwyer said two of the charges, all laid by the Southland Regional Council, related to effluent reaching waterways.

The company had a discharge permit of 100 cubic meters per day onto its own land that prohibited overland flow.

The first incident, on February 21, involved a systems manager discovering an over application of effluent that discharged into the Waihopai River.

The manager alerted company chief executive Todd Grave, who immediately notified Environment Southland.

In March, a routine inspection for a leaking irrigation hydrant caused an overflow but no evidence was found of the overflow entering the water.

In September, a worker found an open hydrant on an irrigation line, which caused ponding in a paddock that then entered a tributary during the weekend.

However, the staff member did not alert Grave or Environment Southland until the Monday following the leak, as the staff member was unaware of the process.

The judge said the offending indicated a failing in staff training and staff awareness.

However, he said there were no long-term effects.

Prosecution lawyer Barry Slowley said the company had ‘‘two distinct problems’’ including the fact it did not have enough effluent storage or a tight management plan for effluent disposal.

In 2015, the company was fined $50,250 in the Environment Court for two similar charges.

The company incident record and the number of incidents ‘‘speak for itself’’, Slowley said.

Yesterday, the lawyer for Blue Sky Meats Michael Parker said in 2016-17 the company was not performing well and a take over was considered but did not happen.

However, since then there had been an improvement, including a board change, with older members leaving board.

‘‘What you are seeing is a new company and a new approach and culture,’’ Parker said.

With more than 350 employees, the company was committed to the community, he said.

Parker said the company had spent time and money to combat the incidents reoccurring.

Funds had gone to IT toward monitoring equipment and a health, safety and environment officer had been hired.

A programme created to improve processes was expected to take 18 months to implement, and it had not reached that time frame yet, Parker said.

‘‘There really is a new broom sweeping here. The court can have confidence the result for the community is going to be much better.’’ and ‘‘fresh blood’’ on