PIC New Zealand Limited pleaded guilty to one charge of discharging the treated sewage onto land in Bankside, near Rakaia. Photo: 123RF
A mid-Canterbury farm has been fined $29,000 for discharging piggery effluent.
PIC New Zealand Limited pleaded guilty to one charge of discharging the treated sewage onto land in Bankside, near Rakaia, which may have then entered nearby waterways.
Canterbury Regional Council said in August 2022, one of its compliance officers noticed a travelling irrigator discharging effluent onto bare land which was drenched with rainwater.
The discharge caused significant effluent ponding, running the length of the paddock behind the travelling irrigator.
At the time, the farm had approximately 11,000 pigs.
There had recently been a period of heavy rainfall, and the site manager thought it was best to discharge some effluent when the 2 million litre storage tank was nearing capacity.
"Allowing ponding to occur is a breach of the company's resource consent - specifically the condition stating that discharges must be managed in such a way that effluent ponding does not occur," zone delivery lead Gillian Jenkins said.
"When soil is saturated, leaching into groundwater aquifers can occur and create pathways leading to contamination of our water sources like springs, rivers, lakes and drinking water."
Recent drinking water testing in the Canterbury region by Greenpeace had found high levels of nitrate in some people's drinking water.
"Pig effluent has higher quantities of nitrogen and ammonia compared to dairy effluent, which makes it especially important to manage," Jenkins said.
The farm had two previous breaches of its resource consent in June 2015 and June 2022. PIC also had two previous convictions for discharging contaminants to water from the Auckland District Court in 2003.
In his ruling, issued at the Christchurch District Court on 21 March, Judge Kelvin Reid said "significant issues arose across the entire region as a result of the volume of rainfall".
"There were reports that a third of annual rainfall for the region fell in the month of July 2022," his statement said.
"The company's effluent disposal system needs to be able to cope with adverse weather events. Equally, staff need to be trained in how to manage the effluent system so that they know what to do during wet periods.
"All farms need to have up to date management plans that allow for climate change. Staff training and farming practices need to be adequate to respond to wet events like this as they will only increase in the future."
The company was convicted and ordered to pay a $29,000 fine and legal costs.
Judge Reid gave discounts in sentencing for PIC's early guilty plea and for its actions to prevent such a breach from happening again. It had begun trucking effluent off site, was using a revised management plan and had installed a HiLo monitoring system on its effluent tank.
"We are really pleased to see the steps that PIC is taking towards improving compliance at the site and we're working closely with them to ensure a problem like this doesn't happen again," Jenkins said.
It comes just weeks after Canterbury Regional Council had an Ashburton irrigation consent quashed At the High Court in Christchurch for failing to fully take into account the possible level of contamination it may generate in coastal areas.
