Two Northland farmers fined $67,000 for environment pollution received the wrath of a judge when they blamed their farm manager.
Mark Stanaway and his wife Kylie each pleaded guilty to eight charges of discharging dairy farm effluent into waterways, a discharge of silage leachate, and one breach of an abatement notice.
They blamed the discharges on their former farm manager Brian Vincent Karl, who was earlier discharged without conviction on four charges because the Environment Court ruled the blame almost entirely lay with the Stanaways.
Judge Laurie Newhook said the Kaipara farm, owned by Stanaways, was about four times overstocked and the capacity of the milking system much greater than the herd size.
The judge was critical of the sentencing submissions of defence lawyer Darrell Hart, who said there was lack of evidence about the environmental impact of the discharges such as that there had been "no sighting of dead fish".
Tess Dacre, an environmental scientist at the Northland Regional Council which laid the charges, said faecal contamination from the discharges were extremely high, they posed a significant risk to stock and humans, and that they contained high counts of bacteria with the potential to cause disease.
Judge Newhook said a lot of things the Stanaways said against Karl amounted to a counsel of perfection or, in other words, ideal but impracticable advice.
" It was a classic situation of a farmer running a herd many times the size that the effluent system could cope with, the judge said.
"... And frankly all the other problems stemmed from that."
Karenza de Silva, lawyer for the NRC, submitted the Stanaways were responsible for the effluent system, which could not cope, there were discharges from multiple sources, and that they failed to take immediate steps to comply with the abatement notice, issued on September 14, 2009.
On the Stanaways' financial situation, Ms de Silva said they chose to buy a second farm and increase the size of its herd, instead of budgeting for an upgrade of the effluent system on the offending farm.
Mr Hart suggested their position was a little better than that of a sharemilker and went on to submit that his clients did not profit from the offending.
Judge Newhook said the guilty pleas did not reflect remorse because the Stanaways were bound up with a statement that minor mitigation works were all that they could afford.
The offending, he ruled, was deliberate, or occasioned by a real want of care, associated with plural discharges and exposing a disregard for effects on the environment.
The judge said there were eight offences, discharge of effluent from six separate sources, contravention of an abatement notice, and the continuing discharge of silage leachate on an intermittent basis over 28 days.
He imposed a fine of $67,000 which may, at the option of the NRC, be paid by 12 equal monthly instalments.