An elderly Golden Bay farmer has been fined $23,000 for discharging effluent into the Onahau River.
In the Environment Court in Nelson yesterday Judge Brian Dwyer said 74-year-old Patricia Nancy Riley had a history of "extremely poor compliance". Riley faced two charges of breaching the Resource Management Act.
The Nelson Mail reported the first charge related to a discharge on Riley's Puramahoi farm on February 13 last year, where effluent overflowed from a sump into a farm drain flowing into the Onahau River.
The second offence was on March 2 where effluent was discharged directly into the river through a pipe.
Testing showed that downstream of the pipe levels of E. coli bacteria were six times higher than those upstream. Nitrogen and phosphate levels also exceeded guidelines.
Riley had been asked in February to fix the pipe.
Judge Dwyer said Riley farmed a modest 40-hectare farm and had 90 cows.
He said the most disturbing feature of the offending was its deliberateness.
Tasman District Council had a documented "litany of correspondence" detailing non-compliance at the farm going back to 1983.
NZPA