Environment Southland is urging dairy farmers to think ahead about what they had to do to get new effluent discharge consents.
If a new application was filed less than three months before the existing consent expired, the Resource Management Act did not allow effluent to be discharged while the new application was processed. More than 400 consents were due to expire in the next three years.
One Southland dairy farmer who neglected to lodge a timely application has been forced to truck his effluent to a neighbour's property for disposal while his new consent application is processed.
Farmers should check if their exist-ing infrastructure complied with current council standards. Where it did not, they might have to build larger effluent storage ponds or install irrigation systems to comply.
While construction did not have to be completed before an application was lodged, the design work did, consents manager John Engel said.
The second and third parts of a State of the Environment report, focusing on Southland's waterways, are due to be released on September 13.
The report would illustrate there were issues concerning water management and the discussion would then start, Environment Southland chief executive Ciaran Keogh said.
In planning for the future, there had to be planning for continued growth in the dairy herd and change had to occur. The potential for dairy in Southland had been about half realised.
Southland was doing "really well" out of dairying and that also needed to be acknowledged. It was a very important part of the regional economy, Mr Keogh said.