Pay bank or protect environment
The Cambridge farmer who copped a record fine for dirty dairying says he was forced to choose between paying off bank loans when the dairy payout plunged or upgrading his effluent system.
Craig Pollock said financial pressure after extending his farm meant he chose to pay off the debt and was punished and targeted by the Waikato Regional Council for that decision.
‘‘It would have been up and running this time last year but we had to pay the bank back on some debt repayments.’’
But the regional council says he’s a repeat offender who was unprepared.
Pollock is a director of Pollock Farms on Victoria Road, along with sons Robert and Andrew, and was convicted of eight charges under the RMA for illegal effluent discharges and fined $131,840.
The fine was the largest total fine imposed on a Waikato farm since the Resource Management Act became law in 1991 and comes after Pollock faced previous convictions over effluent in 1993 and 2001.
Craig Pollock claimed plans for the new effluent system to meet his council regulations were all ready to go when the financial landscape changed.
‘‘And on the eve of announcing them to the bank and could they lend us some money, they blindsided us and said . . all of you dairy farmers have got to pay back some debt.
‘‘We had $350,000 that was going to go into here,’’ he said pointing to the farm.
‘‘Instead we had to give it back. We couldn’t do both.’’
While he admits the farm’s effluent storage was inadequate, he claims none of the effluent had entered any nearby waterways.
Pollock said their financial troubles occurred when the payout fell soon after they expanded their business by buying land across the road. The fall in payout along with the purchase meant the farm business became highly indebted.
The Council took the farmers to court following a series of inspections where they found over-irrigation of effluent, posing a risk of contaminating groundwater.
Similar breaches had been found by the council in 2016 and 2017. Formal warnings and infringement notices had been issued and an abatement notice had been served in September 2016 before this week’s court appearance.
The convictions, fines and enforcement order were imposed by Judge Melanie Harland in the Hamilton District Court on March 5 followed guilty pleas by the company and Craig Pollock.
Council investigations manager Patrick Lynch said the farm had posed an ongoing environmental risk for years.
‘‘There has been woefully inadequate infrastructure on this farm since Pollock first appeared before the courts in the 1990s. Quite simply, he has ignored all of the actions taken by the council to date, as well as all of the messaging from his own industry to improve.’’
Lynch said there was no expansion of dairy effluent infrastructure when herd numbers increased from 380-700 cows.
The farm had only one day worth of effluent storage when it should have been up to 100 times larger than that.
‘‘With virtually no storage, this means there will have been regular and frequent unlawful discharges of dairy effluent into the environment for years,’’ he said.
‘‘It is rare for a farm company to come up with a third prosecution. In that respect, it’s very bad,’’ Lynch said.
A day after the verdict, the father and sons were back on the land clearing trees from a paddock behind the dairy shed, which is to be the site of the farm’s new effluent pond. Robert said it would hold three million litres, be concrete-based and would give them over 90 days of storage.
It will be ready on
June 1 for the 2019-20 season but the court had imposed an enforcement order ensuring it would be installed.
The farm is a Fonterra supplier.
In a statement the dairy cooperative said the case was not representative of the vast majority of farmers who have appropriate effluent management systems in place.
‘‘The farm is in the final stages of upgrading the effluent system and we have indicated to them that if this work is not completed before the 2019/2020 season, we will cease collection.’’