An Environment Court judge has placed work restrictions on a Waikato pig farmer who has been repeatedly warned and charged with environmental offending.
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Kenneth McIntyre and his employer, Kaimai Pork, were convicted and fined more than $128,000 last month - a record fine for environmental offending in the Waikato.
The prosecutions were brought by the Waikato Regional Council over a recently opened commercial piggery near Te Aroha.
In addition to the fine, the court has put a ban on McIntyre being involved in management of animal effluent, as well as restrictions around management of animal numbers and financial decisions.
The Waikato Regional Council's investigations manager Patrick Lynch, says it's McIntyre's fourth prosecution for piggery-related offences, and his environmental offending spreads across almost a decade.
"There's been a heck of a lot of time and effort put in to trying to get some positive behaviour change and the council has abated him and infringed him and warned him and there's been previous prosecutions, and yet there's still this offending with the piggery effluent and where it's ending up. We really had little choice but to put him back in front of the court and the court has taken that extra step of imposing an order against him, which really restricts his role in the industry.
"He clearly has a lot of expertise in the industry and that expertise is still available to his employer or his work situation, but I think this restriction is appropriate in taking him away from the decision making, that if it's poor decision making it can end up with an adverse environmental effect."
