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Vin Smith.
Routine flights for aerial monitoring of farm dairy effluent discharge consents will not be carried out by Environment Southland during 2016/17.
At yesterday’s regulatory committee meeting, Environment Southland councillors agreed ceasing the flights for the coming season was a positive move given the reduction in significant non-compliance over recent years.
Policy, planning & regulatory services director Vin Smith says the compliance team initiated a review after considering the significant non-compliance numbers, success of aerial monitoring, staffing and changes in plans.
“Cases of significant non-compliance have gone down from 6% to 1.7% over the past three years. It’s a reflection of the sector’s improving performance.”
A report presented at the meeting says ceasing the aerial monitoring flights would likely result in little change to the overall outcome of the monitoring programme because non-compliance identified on the flights had become very low.
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