The Environment Court has fined four Bay of Plenty dairy farmers a total of $118,000 for breaches of the Resource Management Act.
Regional council's water management manager Eddie Grogan says the farmers with properties near Te Puke, Waimana and Opotiki, were guilty of contaminating waterways with effluent.
He says all four prosecutions were the result of poor management of irrigators and effluent ponds.
Mr Grogan says in the two worst cases the defendants were fined $40,000 each.
