Dirty dairy farming continues in New Zealand

[Flycasta]

The latest bad news item for flyfishers, courtesy of New Zealand's dairy farming industry: see https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/rural...ischarges.html

In an earlier case in March 2018 the sentencing judge said to the farmer (a serial polluter):

"[19] ... everyone here today recognises that it would be futile to impose a
fine of that amount [$NZ142,500] on you. I accept that you simply do not have the financial capacity to pay any fine at all and indeed you were unable to meet payment of your earlier fine. I note that even after you have sold the three farms you still owe the bank in the order of $3,000,000 plus and you have got the other outstanding fine, so I am precluded from imposing a fine on you. Your present income does not allow you to pay any fine off even over a period of five years.

[20] That means the options I have got in front of me are conviction and discharge, imprisonment, community work or community detention. In this case I have determined that a sentence of community work is appropriate. That holds you accountable to the community for your offending and marks the Court's concerns about the offending. It should have some deterrent effect."

So the guy dumps his dairy shed waste in a trout stream, pleads poverty and walks away with a light penalty. Don't ask me what "community work" is; perhaps stacking books in the local library.

Water management isn't much better in Australia, where the Murray river conservation scheme was sabotaged by crooked cotton farmers and corrupt State water officials. Check out  the Four Corners TV item at https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/pumped/8727826 for a hard-hitting documentary on water theft and greed. This reporting led to court prosecutions.

[jcampbell]

Hmmm. This kind of reminds me of the USA justice system. The only difference is that the poor man goes to jail. The elites just pay a fine for the same offense and laugh about it. Well, that is unless you are in the wrong political camp. We can't even get people on Welfare to do community work. This is not really a conservation statement, but it could be.