$52,500 fine for effluent mismanagement
A Taupiri farming company has been convicted and fined $52,500 in the Hamilton District Court for the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent into the environment.
A new heavy-duty, shore-based stirrer from effluent handling specialist Hi-Tech Enviro Solutions can help eliminate the problem of crusts forming on effluent pond or storage towers.
The machine is designed to deal with a pond of 3.5 million litres.
The stirrer, made extensively from high-grade galvanised steel, has a triangular pedestal designed to be bolted to a concrete pad at the edge of the pond.
A deep, square-section support tube, in this case 8m long, can be tailored to individual situations; it has a large propeller surrounded by a shroud not unlike an empty oil drum. The interaction between the propeller and the shroud is designed to increase the velocity of the liquid and to create a vortex that keeps solids in suspension and helps reduce the build-up of silted areas in a pond.
Depth control is achieved by a heavy-duty chain arrangement at the pedestal end, with an integral foot at the business end designed to protect the liner from damage.
Also at this end of the unit, a mechanical linkage can be adjusted to alter the angle of the propeller/shroud to mix thoroughly.
Power comes from a shore-mounted electricity supply from 4 to 7.5kW; gearbox reductions at the propeller end can be tweaked to a range of speeds and power requirements.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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