The judges of the Southland Enviro Awards say a locally developed innovative dairy effluent storage system is the way of the future.
It's described as so good it could end up putting Southland Regional Council compliance officers out of of a job.
The system featured in two environmental awards. Judges say that if every dairy farmer in the region used the system, there would not be any worries about waterways being polluted with effluent.
John White from Hynds Pipe Systems in Winton who won the Innovator of the Year Award was part of the design team. He says the
system provides for up to three million litres of effluent or about 60 days of storage.
Otago Regional Council held a special field day on a property south of Oamaru, on Wednesday to demonstrate an effluent separator designed and developed by a sister company of Hynds.
The Gillies Hypress separates solids from the dairy effluent leaving the lowest application rate possible to be sprayed onto pastures as fertiliser.
The council says the separator will give farmers a more cost effective way of safely irrigating dairy effluent.
