Southland dairy farmer fined $71k for environmental breaches

An embattled Southland dairy farmer has been fined more than $70,000 for his environmental calamities. 

Reza Abdul-Jabbar and his company Marshall Road Farm (previously Rural Practice Ltd) admitted four charges under the Resource Management Act, which covered the discharge of contaminants into waterways and continued non-compliance. 

Judge Prudence Steven KC, before the Environment Court at Invercargill this week released her decision, imposing a total fine of $71,500. 

Environment Southland resource management manager Donna Ferguson said the decision marked the culmination of an 18-month process. 

“Our communities have told us they expect environmental standards to be upheld, and we want to make it clear that those who do not, should expect us to take action,” she said. 

The financial punishment comes just months after Abdul-Jabbar was fined $215,000 by the Employment Relations Authority after a Labour Inspectorate investigation found he underpaid three immigrant farm workers. 

The inquiry also discovered he ‘‘invented’’ pay records in an attempt to hide it from authorities. 

Abdul-Jabbar was the face of Fonterra and the Department of Conservation’s Living Water project, and has made headlines for his trail-blazing methods. 

Last year, he told one website he had retired 10 hectares of farmland “in order to keep their waterways safe and clean”. 

The court heard last week that Abdul-Jabbar had placed significant responsibility in a contractor who operated the farm. 

On March 17 last year, a compliance officer visited the site, near the Awarua Wetlands, after they received a complaint that cows were in the Waituna Stream. 

The contractor was served an abatement notice but more problems were found when inspectors returned five months later. 

The defendant’s silage was stored on unsealed ground, which allowed the contaminant to seep into soil and potentially flow into waterways, an Environment Southland summary said. 

A pipe set up to pump effluent into a pond was leaking, causing contaminated liquid to escape onto the road, the court heard. 

During follow-up checks in October and December last year, the inspector noticed there had been little to no change. 

Abdul-Jabbar's counsel Emma Stewart said while her client accepted the charges, he was not made aware of the issues by his contractor. 

The issues had since been addressed, she said. 

Environment Southland said there were three similar prosecutions before the court.