EW deputy in gun for overflow deputy in gun for overflow

The deputy chairman of Environment Waikato is under investigation for dirty dairying after an eye-in-the-sky check of his property.

John Fisher admitted feeling "bad and stupid" about the EW investigation into the effluent overflow on one of his two Cambridge dairy farms.

The investigation comes just weeks after a handful of high-profile EW prosecutions for dirty dairying, including the Crafars and Piopio dairy farmer Ben Watson.

"It makes me feel pretty bad and stupid really. I am frustrated and annoyed with myself.

"We could have had a better system in place to prevent that. It was avoidable."

Mr Fisher said the council was investigating after one of three effluent ponds, which had been dry for five or six years, overflowed into a farm drain following heavy rain. He did not think the effluent had got as far as the waterways.

"Because of the extraordinary weather that we have had, more effluent got into our storage than was normal," he said.

"I guess it just highlights the vagaries of the weather, and some of our systems need to be upgraded to make sure we are compliant.

"It is quite a challenge. In hindsight I should have had more storage."

Mr Fisher, who farms 700 cows over the two farms, said he had been talking to an effluent consultant about an upgrade of the system and installation of a concrete sealed sump on his neighbouring farm about a month before the incident, and he would be going ahead with im-provements on both farms.

"We will probably need to look at putting greater storage capacity in."

Mr Fisher, who was at home on the day of the incident, said he had been monitoring his farms more closely since.

Environment Waikato complaints and enforcement manager Rob Dragten would not talk about the details of Mr Fisher's case, but confirmed an investigation was under way after a helicopter monitoring flight on October 28 identified the potential problem on Mr Fisher's Monovale farm.

"We are in the process of investigating that, and no decisions have been made whether anything (prosecution) is going to happen as a result," Mr Dragten said.

"The process takes anywhere from one to two months to work through."

Mr Dragten said Mr Fisher, who was sworn in as deputy chairman two years ago, would not get special treatment because of his position.

"We investigate every complaint in exactly the same way," he said.

The council released a report last year which found three quarters of the region's waterways were too polluted for swimming in, and blamed a century or more of intensive farming.

Farmer Allan Crafar, who is applying for legal aid to defend five further charges of dirty dairying, and breaching an abatement notice on a Kuratau farm southwest of Taupo, said Mr Fisher's case proved it could happen to anybody at any time.

"They have totally targeted our family, and it makes a change that they are targeting another family."

Mr Crafar was pleased to hear Waikato Federated Farmers was establishing an effluent advisory group because EW staff refused to give advice to farmers.

"They won't give advice. They say `we know nothing about running farms, all we are doing is enforcing the law'.

"That is a very bad attitude. They are going around like the Gestapo."

- © Fairfax NZ News