The dairy industry and Horizons Regional Council agreed to remove figures that would easily highlight how much farmers were exceeding environmental limits under the One Plan.
The Chronicle has obtained an email which highlights a plan to leave nitrogen limits out of resource-consent documents because it had the "potential to cause significant harm to the industry" if compared with what the farm was actually leaching.
The council's One Plan brought in limits on the nitrogen leaching for intensive farming in the region after a decade of hearings and legal challenges. But the Chronicle revealed last week the majority of farms didn't meet controlled consent conditions and had been given restricted discretionary consents to leach nitrogen at up to three times the One Plan limit.

An email sent from Dairy NZ project manager Geoff Taylor to farmers, industry representatives and Horizons staff in July last year said it had agreed with the council not to include nitrogen limits on consent documents so it could not be compared with the farm's actual nitrogen leaching rate.