The Environment Court has granted resource consents for a $12 million dairy farm near Omarama that will eventually milk up to 1400 cows.
The farm, developed over the past three years by Little Ben Ltd, is a joint venture between North Otago businessman Merv McCabe and Omarama farmer Richard Gloag.
It covers 470ha straddling Ben Omar Rd, just over the Ahuriri River State Highway 8 bridge on land that was part of Buscot Station, owned by the Gloag family.
There are other dairy farms in the area, closer to Twizel.
The farm is irrigated by centre pivots and K-line from the Benmore irrigation scheme, the company having extended the irrigation race and excavated a tunnel to obtain the water.
Mr McCabe said, when contacted yesterday, the dairy farm should be operating by spring, and the new milking shed and effluent ponds were nearing completion.
He was critical of the cost and delays of the resource consent process handled by Environment Canterbury (ECan).
He estimated the process had cost the company about $250,000 in legal, consultancy and other fees and at least another $250,000 in lost production because it had hoped to have the farm operating last season.
That plan was delayed while the company had to go to the Environment Court, lodging an appeal on January 25 after an ECan decision on December 1 last year failed to grant what was required to make the venture economic and environmentally sustainable.
Mr McCabe said the process had "basically wasted two years' production" because the consents granted by ECan were not workable and made the property uneconomic.
"They [ECan] may just as well have not given them," he said.
The consent granted was in terms outside ECan's jurisdiction, which was why the company had appealed to the Environment Court.
The company sought a consent to dispose of 77,560 litres of dairy effluent a day to land, starting with 900 cows in the first year, 1200 in the second year and the maximum 1400 cows in the third year.
The cows will not be housed and will winter off the property.
There were 16 submissions on the application, seven in support, one neutral and eight opposed.
Agreement was reached with submitters opposing, including the Central South Island Fish and Game Council, Department of Conservation (Doc) and Canterbury Aoraki Conservation Board.
Fish and Game was concerned about the effect on the renowned trout fishery in the Ahuriri River, and Doc and the conservation board about the Ben Omar wetlands, which are of regional and national importance.
ECan granted a consent for effluent disposal from 750 cows only, and limited that to a 10-year period.
It granted land use consents for the effluent pond for 35 years.
Little Ben appealed the effluent consent to the Environment Court, which has now granted what the company originally sought, for 25 years.
