A Northland farmer has been fined $24,000 in the latest in a series of farm pollution offences.
Graham Owen Fox was sentenced in the Whangarei District Court on Monday, for two breaches of animal effluent regulations at his dairy farm at Kaipara in 2010.
The breaches concern the discharge of effluent from a storage tank and pond onto land, with the risk of it entering a tributary of the Waima River.
The judge noted that Fox was on holiday at the time of the offences and that the farm manager was working long hours, but says the onus of compliance is on the farm owner.
