Mid Canterbury dairy farmer fined for water take
A Mayfield farmer, Simon Roy, has been fined $7500 after pleading guilty to a charge of taking water for irrigation without the necessary resource consent. Sentencing was held in Christchurch District Court on February 8, 2010.
On February 4, 2009, Environment Canterbury officers inspected Mr Roy’s property and discovered that a centre pivot irrigator was discharging water. The officers measured the flow of water from the bore and calculated that abstraction was occurring at approximately 40 litres per second and that the irrigator had operated for just over 300 hours.
Mr Roy accepted responsibility for the operation of the irrigator and that it was operating in a fully allocated red zone but claimed that he was only testing the system. In a later interview, he admitted that the test had run continuously for seven days and that he had not notified Environment Canterbury of his actions or obtained resource consent.
Judge Doherty noted that the defendant had participated in a Restorative Justice Conference in September 2009. The outcome was that he paid the council’s investigation costs along with an advertising campaign discouraging people from irrigating without resource consent. The advertisements titled “Only fools break the water rules” commenced in October 2009 and ran for two months in a farming magazine.
Mr Roy’s action breached section 14(1)(a) and 14(3)(a) of the Resource Management Act 1991.
Judge Doherty noted that this was a serious type of offence because the illegal taking of water prevented any assessment of potential environmental impact.
Mr Roy acknowledged his offending was deliberate and he was aware of the need to gain consent and was operating in a red zone. The Judge gave credit for the early guilty plea and Mr Roy’s attendance at a restorative justice conference.
Judge Doherty imposed a fine of $7500 and also ordered Mr Roy to pay court costs of $113 and solicitors’ costs of $130. Ninety percent of the fine was paid to the regional council.