Waikato Regional Council

HAMILTON — A Waikato farming company, a company director and a farm manager have been convicted and fined a combined $305,900 for unlawful discharges of dairy effluent into the environment, and contravention of abatement notices, on numerous occasions between August 2022 and June 2023.

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TAUPO — From Monday, 4 December, Waikato’s first electric bus takes to the streets of Taupō replacing the current diesel vehicle, which has been a mainstay of the Waikato public bus system for years.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council has responded to news today that a highly invasive freshwater gold clam has been discovered across a 45km stretch of the Waikato River.

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WAIKATO — The first set of highly accurate 3D mapping data for the Waikato region has just been released and will be a “gamechanger” for councils and the wider community.

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WAIKATO — Reports of effluent being illegally dumped from trucks in three locations in the Matamata-Piako district have prompted calls for trucking companies and farmers to improve their practices.

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WAIKATO — The resilience of dunes and the sustainability of the sand-binding kōwhangatara/spinifex is being keenly felt by Coastcare groups in the eastern Coromandel Peninsula following Cyclone Hale.

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RAGLAN — A farming company has been convicted and fined $78,000 for unlawful discharges of dairy effluent into streams at their Raglan farm.

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MORRINSVILLE — Morrinsville farmer Kenneth McIntyre has been sentenced to a term of five months home detention and been fined $100,000 in the Hamilton District Court following his conviction on 13 charges of breaching the Resource Management Act.  The sentence imposed by Judge David Kirkpatrick yesterday follows a trial in June of last year.

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WAIKATO — Motorists are being urged to drive with their headlights on at all times over the coming winter months to help reduce the risk of crashes.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council today adopted the 2012-2022 Draft Long Term Plan featuring proposals for improving water quality, coastal area planning, civil defence capability and river catchment and drainage services.

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WAIKATO — The deaths of masses of little fish in a lagoon at Otama Beach on the Coromandel coast last month are thought to have been the result of overheating, Waikato Regional Council has concluded.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is next week hosting a visit from a Californian local government specialist in sustainable development at a time when the council is working with others to boost regional development and innovation.

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WAIKATO — Further opportunities for Waikato boaties to learn about important safety skills are being offered over the next few weeks.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council staff are looking at whether lessons learned during the successful and highly popular Hamilton Halo project to protect tui can be applied to other parts of the region.

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WAIKATO — A major possum and goat control operation is next month set to get underway covering a high value native forest near the Waikato region's south-west coast just north of Awakino.

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WAIKATO — Possible ways of making multi-million dollar savings on possum control are outlined in a draft Regional Pest Management Strategy (RPMS) discussion document received yesterday by the regional pest management committee.

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WAIKATO — Water quality results from the first round of testing at the contaminated Tui Mine have just been received and look promising, says Waikato Regional Council.

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WAIKATO — By Bala Tikkisetty Getting peak productivity from the region's prolific peat soils is crucial for farming profitability.

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KAWHIA — Waikato Regional Council staff investigating the cause of yesterday’s diesel spill around Kawhia wharf say the source remains a mystery and they want public help to track it down.

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WAIKATO — Children from Rotokauri School listen to a Waikato Regional Council harbourmaster and Ruben the road safety bear yesterday as they wait for their chance to sail their model boats down the Waikato River in Hamilton.

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KAWHIA — Waikato Regional Council's oil spill response team is reacting to reports of a diesel spill at Kawhia wharf.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is reminding boaties that another course aimed at saving the lives of people crossing the notorious Raglan bar is being held this Sunday 11 March.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is writing to hundreds of forest owners in the region reminding them they need to register their forests by 31 March if they want to qualify for and claim Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) New Zealand units under the first five-year sequestration period of the Kyoto Protocol.

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HAMILTON — Hamilton City Council and one of its staff are being prosecuted over a sewage sludge spill at the Pukete wastewater treatment plant last July.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council’s regulatory committee has agreed to a staff recommendation to end its role in deciding what cases will be prosecuted in court.

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WAIKATO — Meat company Affco has been granted two resource consents for works associated with the existing stormwater and cooling water outfall from its Horotiu plant to the Waikato River.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is praising the region’s dairy farmers for their environmental performance during the gas supply crisis of the past week which saw millions of litres of milk dumped in the Waikato.

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WHANGAMATA — Maritime New Zealand will update residents on the Rena oil spill response and possible effects on the Coromandel Peninsula’s east coast during a public meeting in Whangamata this weekend.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council’s transport team says it expects Hamilton bus services won’t be disrupted next week providing full gas supplies resume from Taranaki on Sunday as hoped.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council today deferred a decision on whether to include a Hamilton to Auckland rail service in its 2012-2022 Long Term Plan, opting to wait for more information from its funding partners.

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Waikato Regional Council today voted to establish two Maori seats in time for the 2013 local government elections.

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WAIKATO — Milk collection in the Waikato has continued to improve today, meaning lessening environmental risk from surplus milk getting into waterways, says Waikato Regional Council.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council says it is heartened by news of a limited resumption of gas supplies to dairy factories in the region, meaning there is less risk of surplus milk polluting waterways.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is urging the region’s farmers to do all they can to keep milk out of waterways following a gas supply disruption in Taranaki which has hit dairy company factory operations from the Waikato north.

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TE AROHA — About 80 people gathered yesterday for the official launch of the second and most critical phase of a project to clean up the abandoned Tui Mine on the western slopes of Mount Te Aroha.

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TAUPO — Owners of small blocks of land in the Lake Taupo catchment will be able to tap into public funds to help them get resource consents, if required.

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RAGLAN — Another course aimed at saving the lives of boaties crossing the notorious Raglan bar is being held next month by Coastguard Raglan, with support from Waikato Regional Council.

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WAIKATO — As the summer boating season is set to kick off at Labour Weekend, Waikato Regional Council is reminding boaties about the need to carry enough lifejackets for everyone on board.

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WAIKATO — The latest Waikato Regional Council helicopter monitoring flight from last month has confirmed an improving trend indicating an ongoing drop in significant non-compliance with the council’s dairy effluent management permitted activity rules.

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Waikato Regional Council is continuing preparations for the possibility that oil may come ashore on the Coromandel coast in the wake of the Rena grounding.

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Waikato Regional Council’s regulatory committee has today formally instructed staff to review the role of councillors in deciding what prosecutions the council undertakes.

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BAY OF PLENTY — Additional Waikato Regional Council staff have travelled to the Bay of Plenty today and a further eight staff are on standby for urgent deployment to help with the Rena oil spill clean-up.

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A new bus stop being built in Chartwell will cut the journey times for some BUSIT! passengers on four services stopping in Lynden Court.

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A total of five Waikato Regional Council workers are now in the Bay of Plenty helping with a range of roles as Maritime New Zealand responds to the grounding of the Rena and the resulting oil spills.

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Waikato Regional Council’s internationally significant Variation 5 policy to help protect Lake Taupō has won a special Resource Management Law Association documentation award.

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COROMANDEL — Coromandel residents will have a chance to swap their garden weeds for native plants at two “Weeds 4 Natives” events later this month.

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WAIKATO — Almost all the passengers using the region’s buses are satisfied with the services, according to an independent survey for the Waikato Regional Council.

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WAIKATO — More than 20 Waikato Regional Council staff are ready to respond to any Maritime New Zealand request to help out with oil spill containment and clean-up operations following the grounding of the Rena off the Bay of Plenty coast.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council has issued consents for a milk factory at Arapuni in South Waikato after the resolution of an appeal over the project.

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BAY OF PLENTY — A Waikato Regional Council staff member is travelling to the Bay of Plenty to help with the Maritime New Zealand response to a ship grounding 22 kilometres off Mount Maunganui.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council’s hazards and emergency management team is maintaining a watching brief after a severe thunderstorm warning from MetService which includes the Coromandel Peninsula and western Waikato and Waitomo districts.

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WAIKATO — Free shuttle buses transported almost 10,000 supporters to and from the fan zone for Hamilton’s three Rugby World Cup 2011 games.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council chairman Peter Buckley says the Auditor-General’s comments released today on Waikato water quality highlight the issues the council has been working to address.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council’s work to reduce the amount of stock effluent being discharged onto the region’s roads has been recognised with an award.

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WAIKATO — A new campaign launched in the Waikato this week aims to improve the safety of heavy vehicles travelling on the region's roads.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is supporting a new round of Coastguard boating education courses for boaties at Raglan and Kawhia over the next two months.

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WAIKATO — The idea of having a regional rate meet 15 per cent of the cost of harbour management works on the Coromandel Peninsula has been endorsed by the regional council’s catchment services committee.

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WAIKATO — Changes to a scheme designed to protect peat lakes in Waipa District have yesterday been endorsed by Waikato Regional Council’s finance and audit committee.

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TOKOROA — The relatively speedy granting of a resource consent to a planned milk drying plant in Tokoroa is a great example of what can be achieved when companies work proactively with the regional council, says regulatory committee chair Lois Livingston.

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WAIKATO — The Waikato Regional Council’s budget surplus for the 2010/11 financial year and its accumulated surpluses are set to fund essential building repairs, the Tui Mine remediation project and costs related to the Home of Cycling consultation.

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WAIKATO — Dairy companies and Waikato Federated Farmers are making positive contributions towards helping protect water quality in the Waikato, says the regional council’s resource use group manager Chris McLay.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council has today voted 6-3 in favour of a $6 million funding request to help build a national cycling centre of excellence, including a velodrome, near Cambridge.

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COROMANDEL — Waikato Regional Council is well placed to play its part in the growth of aquaculture in Coromandel when new laws take effect on 1 October, says policy group manager Vaughan Payne.

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WAIKATO — A series of highly successful possum and rat control operations was the highlight of an annual report to the regional council’s regional pest management committee yesterday.

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WAIKATO — Advice for small block owners on the implications of Waikato Regional Council’s Variation 5 policy to protect Lake Taupō will be available at an information evening on Tuesday 11 October.

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WAIKATO — A judge has fined the owners of two Northland farms more than $50,000 between them for unrelated dairy effluent offences near Kaitaia and Whangarei last year.

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HAMILTON — Waikato Regional Council is reminding those using waka ama and rowing skiffs on the river in Hamilton that failing to follow river safety rules endangers the lives and well-being of themselves and other water users.

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HAMILTON — Hamiltonians with their eyes on the sky are being urged to get snapping and submit their best photo of a tui or bellbird by the end of this month.

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WAIKATO — Increasingly popular inland freight ‘hubs’ result in greater use of rail and lead to significant fuel savings and benefits for the nation’s environment, the Regional Transport Committee has heard.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council has received preliminary advice about the risk of a legal challenge if councillors who are the subject of conduct complaints take part in the vote later this month on whether or not to fund the proposed velodrome.

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WAIKATO — The critical importance of dairy farmers having adequate effluent storage has been highlighted by preliminary results from the first of seven Waikato Regional Council helicopter monitoring flights scheduled for 2011-12.

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WAIKATO — The builders of the Te Rapa section of the Waikato Expressway – the Te Rapa Alliance - have won Waikato Regional Council’s earthworks site of the year award due to the project’s very high standards of erosion and sediment control.

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RAGLAN — Raglan residents will have a week-long opportunity to swap their weeds for native plants this month.

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WAIKATO — The results of a telephone survey and submissions reveal the community is split over whether Waikato Regional Council should contribute to construction of a national cycling centre of excellence.

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WAIKATO — Volunteer groups involved in work to protect and improve the Waikato region’s environment have been given a funding boost by the Waikato Regional Council.

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A Waikato Regional Council senior policy advisor is one of six New Zealanders selected for an international exchange programme to examine local government climate change initiatives.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council has received 180 submissions on its application to carry out 31.5 hectares of new mangrove removal at Whangamata and a further 6.5 hectares of “clean up” work on previously cleared areas.

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The region is one step closer to a Hamilton-Auckland passenger rail service, with a multiagency working party today recommending that it proceed to consultation.

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Waikato Regional Council has awarded a $40,000 grant to a project aimed at restoring a highly-valued but endangered wetlands area on Lake Taupo.

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WAIKATO — Eight school children fundraising to attend an international conference have been given a boost with a $5000 grant from Waikato Regional Council.

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WAIKATO — Information collected during a series of community meetings will help with future land and water planning of the Kaimai-Mamauku catchments by agencies involved in a joint project.

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PUKEKOHE — A Pukekohe poultry breeding farm company, T Good Limited, has been fined $42,000 after a “lahar” of chicken effluent ran from the property and contaminated a nearby stream.

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WAIKATO — Waikato residents are being asked to report sightings of rooks – destructive pest birds which threaten the region’s agricultural production.

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WAIKATO — An internal strategy that provides clear direction to the Waikato Regional Council for improving air quality in four non-complying Waikato towns is a step closer to being adopted.

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WAIKATO — An Auckland-based company has been awarded the contract for the final phase of work to remediate the country’s most contaminated site, the Tui mine at Mount Te Aroha.

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WAIKATO — The Waikato Regional Council’s budget surplus for the 2010/11 financial year is likely to fund essential building repairs and the Tui Mine remediation project.

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WAIKATO — It is now expected to be late this year before the Environment Court rules on Waikato Regional Council’s proposed Variation 6 to the regional plan, which seeks to better manage the growing pressure on the Waikato’s fresh water resources.

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WAIKATO — The results of a national survey which have just been released show the number of Waikato residents prepared for a disaster has grown significantly in some cases, but still remains too low in others.

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TOKOROA — Tokoroa has had four more PM10 exceedances in July, bringing the total number of exceedances in the town this winter to twelve.

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WAIKATO — Honda New Zealand has contributed another $11,320 to native tree planting in the Waikato, only a slight reduction on last year’s $12,010 despite the ongoing tougher economic times.

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WAIKATO — A new round of Waikato Regional Council helicopter monitoring to check on compliance with dairy effluent management rules is due to get underway shortly.

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WAIKATO — Support is mounting for the Waikato Regional Council to apply a regional rate to fund construction and maintenance of stock truck effluent disposal sites.

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WAIKATO — Public consultation starts tomorrow on a $6 million funding proposal for a national cycling centre of excellence, including a velodrome, near Cambridge.

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WAIKATO — Changes to the Glenview and Mahoe bus timetables will come into effect next month, resulting in increased frequency of services to the Waikato Hospital.

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WAIKATO — Close collaboration between all stakeholders – including iwi, farmers, the agriculture industry and local councils – will be the key to successfully addressing land and water quality issues in the region, says the chair of Waikato Regional Council’s land and water quality subcommittee chairman Norm Barker.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is urging members of the public to be extra vigilant around the region’s swollen rivers and streams, with water levels in the larger rivers expected to rise further over the next couple of days.

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WAIKATO — The results of an annual Waikato Regional Council survey have just been released and show that too many children under 12 are still not wearing lifejackets on boats.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council scientists believe breaches of national standards for air quality at a busy northern Hamilton intersection may be linked to roadworks in the area.

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WAIKATO — Full year figures have confirmed that Waikato farmers made significant environmental gains last season as they, the agriculture industry and the regional council increased the focus on complying with dairy effluent management rules.

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WAIKATO — Waikato Regional Council is concerned about the environmental impacts of the government’s proposed National Environmental Standards (NES) for plantation forestry for sensitive areas like the Coromandel Peninsula.

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