A Waikato farmer has been fined $34,000 in Hamilton District Court for effluent offences.
Bryce Silvester of Tuawhare pled guilty to two charges laid under the Resource Management Act following effluent spills at his farm early this year.
In January, Waikato Regional Council officers inspected the farm after a complaint that the nearby Waitakaruru Stream was "running green with effluent".
They found that the farm's holding pond had overflowed into a spring-fed gully and that an irrigator had over-applied effluent onto a paddock with the excess draining into the Waitakaruru Stream.
