Piggery fined for discharge of effluent

Wairarapa's biggest commercial piggery has been fined more then $30,000 after absent owners pleaded guilty to discharging pig effluent into a waterway - rendering bore and tap water on a neighbouring farm unfit to drink.
The prosecution was brought against Reid's Piggery by the Greater Wellington Regional Council in November last year after a neighbouring farmer notified authorities of contamination in the stream from the Haringa Road, Carterton operation.
In Masterton District Court yesterday regional council lawyer Jackson Webber told Environment Court Judge Craig Thompson that on November 26, 2008 a regional council enforcement officer found gray effluent discharging from an open hydrant, which pooled in a paddock and subsequently entered a tributary of the Parkvale Stream.
Later that evening the regional council were notified that a pregnant neighbour - who had been drinking a lot of tap water while breastfeeding - had smelled pig effluent in her tap water.
The next day enforcement officers tested a drinking water bore at the property and found "concentrations of faecal coliforms equivalent to those found in raw municipal sewage and phosphorus concentrations tenfold higher that those found in municipal waste water," Mr Webber said.
The neighbours' bore water was found to have a faecal bacteria count 4,600 times higher the national drinking standard, while their tap water was 700 times higher.
Samples taken 20m downstream from the discharge point into the tributary were also found to be "significantly contaminated,' with a faecal coliform count 100 times higher than the upstream sample.
The findings lead officers to the conclusion that "all aquatic life in the downstream reach sampled would have been eliminated by the discharge," with adverse effects "likely to have extended for kilometres further down the stream."
Mr Webber then told the court that an ill-prepared new irrigator system operator was controlling the effluent that day and had become confused because one hydrant had been buried and another obscured by gorse - both hydrants had been open.
Because neither tap was visible the operator thought he was dealing with the last tap on the line, Mr Webber told the court.
The piggery had been granted a 15-year consent to release the effluent in 2007 and general manager Stephen Shivas (who was present for sentencing) later admitted that no record was kept about which hydrants were used at which times, although records were kept of how much effluent was applied to each paddock, in keeping with consent conditions.
Earlier in the year the piggery was under the spotlight in a television animal welfare media debate instigated by entertainer Mike King.
In June Reid's Piggery owners Noel and Elaine Reid escaped a warrant for their arrest in the case because they were overseas.
The couple - who are still abroad on a humanitarian mission in Africa - were sentenced in absentia at Masterton District Court yesterday.
Judge Thompson highlighted the apparent neglect of the effluent disposal system -effectively nixing defence lawyer Jock Blathwayt's argument that a "malicious" or "mischievous" saboteur could have been responsible for opening the hydrants at the "unpopular" piggery.
Although the attitude of the Reids and Mr Shivas was not deliberate "it was the case that insufficient attention was paid both to the system and the new employee," Judge Thompson said.
The trio were given credit for entering early guilty pleas and Mr Shivas was singled out for his cooperation with the regional council investigation.
Judge Thompson ordered the Reids to pay a fine of $12,000 each and a further $1523 each to cover the cost of the enquiry.
Mr Shivas was ordered to pay a fine of $5000, while all three defendants were ordered to pay $130 each for court costs.