Some dairy farmers are starting to feel the impact of stiffer penalties of up to a million dollars introduced last year under the Resource Management Act (RMA).

A Waikato farmer, Wayne Maurice Clarke, has been convicted and fined $97,500 for unlawfully discharging dairy effluent into the environment on his farm at Te Kōwhai, near Hamilton.

In September 2025, council officers inspected the defendant's 170-cow dairy farm and found significant ponding of dairy effluent as a result of it being irrigated onto already saturated soils.

Officers found the effluent infrastructure on the farm was inadequate, lacking proper storage and management oversight of irrigation practices.

"These unlawful discharges were entirely avoidable. Despite decades of ownership and management by Mr Clarke, insufficient investment had been made in effluent infrastructure and systems to ensure effluent was managed sustainably," Waikato Regional Council Investigations Team Leader Evan Billington said.

"It was concerning that no one had oversight of effluent irrigation over a three-day period leading up to this incident, despite wet weather and soil conditions."

According to Billington, this was the first case in the region using the new regime introduced last August under the RMA.

"It's now gone up to a million dollar fine or 18 months imprisonment. This fine in part reflected the increase in the penalties," he said.

The regional council said the effluent storage wasn't up to the job required.

"So they had a bladder storage, but it was pretty limited. It just means they're having to irrigate regardless of weather," Billington said.

"The council found the irrigator had parked for three days in the same paddock, it had come to the end of its run, the manager was off on his regular days off and the owner hadn't monitored it over those three days."

There was a drain at the end of the paddock on the 70-hectare farm, and there were concerns with more irrigation the effluent would enter groundwater.

"There was concern with any more irrigation it would get there [to water]"

The fine was imposed by Judge Melinda Dickey in a decision released by Huntly District Court on October 15, 2026, following a prosecution brought by Waikato Regional Council under the Resource Management Act.

In sentencing, Judge Dickey said Clarke's conduct was highly careless, and prosecution could have been avoided if he'd complied with environmental obligations.