Media Release

Farmers need to comply at all times
For immediate release: 3 November 2009

Environment Bay of Plenty Chief Executive Bill Bayfield has hit back at Federated Farmers saying effluent management compliance should be a priority at all times for all farmers.

“Given the millions of dollars of public money being spent on restoring Rotorua lakes it is not acceptable that farmers believe it is okay to be non-compliant at any time,” Mr Bayfield said.

“If farmers in Lake Okaro and Lake Rerewhakaaitu can be compliant, I fail to see how farmers just kilometres away in Rotorua are any different.”

“Contrary to Federated Farmers’ suggestion that wet weather or calving season are mitigating circumstances to compliance, such added pressures are not a defence for not managing farm effluent appropriately,” Mr Bayfield said.

He said the regional council had not changed its compliance monitoring rules.

“To the compliant farmers, thank you but the non-compliant farmers have let down not just Environment Bay of Plenty but their community too. Consent conditions are like a contract with the community allowing farmers to operate – they have broken that contract with the community. These farmers have resource consents and conditions that they have to comply with. The conditions and requirements are not new to them – in some cases they’ve been in place for 10 years.

“It’s not acceptable that we see on second inspections a number are still not compliant. Why wasn’t the compliance upon re-inspection 100 percent?

“Federated Farmers’ media release today focuses on side issues to the fact that nearly 50 percent of farmers around Lake Rotorua were not compliant with their consents and indicates that sadly, we really have a long way to go until these farmers take the issue seriously,” Mr Bayfield said.

“Environment Bay of Plenty has been and will continue to work closely with Federated Farmers and other dairy and farming organisations to help restore and protect the Rotorua lakes. During our Ten Year Plan process our senior management and councillors listened to Rotorua catchment farmers tell us how well they were performing - clearly the audit results indicate otherwise.”

ENDS.

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