More responsibility needed to curb effluent spillages
Posted on Friday, 29 July 2011 12:56 p.m.
Environment Southland is urging dairy farmers and stock carriers to take more responsibility to help reduce dairy effluent spillages on Southland roads after a poor result last month.
Council Chief Executive Ciaran Keogh said in June there was a disappointingly high volume of incidents where stock effluent had spilled from trucks and onto roads where it may enter water across the district.
Last month a joint operation between council compliance staff and police targeting spills coming from operators whose trucks did not have effluent holding tanks illustrated the problem, he said.
All but one of the operators issued with a $750 infringement notice did not have holding tanks on board.
While recognising there was significantly more stock movement in Southland resulting from the expansion of the dairy industry, more needed to be done to keep roads and waterways clean, he said.
“The disappointing thing is that despite all of our best efforts, progress isn’t being made.”
How the council proceeds on the infringement matters will be determined in the next few weeks, after a request was made by the New Zealand Road Transport Forum for their cancellation, Mr Keogh said.
However stock carriers have been caught in the middle of the argument because they relied on farmers standing their stock off green feed, before being transported for winter grazing, he said.
That method reduces the amount of effluent deposited onto a truck during transport by up to two thirds.
Truck operators did need to take responsibility to ensure they either carried stock that had been stood off green feed, used holding tanks, or emptied effluent at disposal sites, to prevent spillage.
“But the reality is that this wouldn’t be such a problem if farmers stood their stock,” Mr Keogh said.
Environment Southland is the brand name of Southland Regional Council.