The Waikato Regional Council is actually enforcing the RMA for once:
Three Waikato farmers have been fined a total of $116,100 for illegally discharging farm effluent.The other two were fined $28,000 and $26,500 respectively. But these sorts of offences are happening with depressing regularity (here's an example prosecuted yesterday), so maybe the fines need to increase, so its not just a cost of doing business?[...]
Gerard Wolvers from South Waikato, who has farmed for nearly 50 years, was convicted on three charges after an unknown amount of effluent ended up in a stream.
The discharges happened over two days in April 2018 and were reported to the council by a member of the public.
An estimated 3-400,000 litres of effluent had been pumped into a paddock where it formed a flow path across farmland.
Wolvers was fined $61,600.
