The Otago Regional Council (OCR) is reminding Central Otago farmers that consent applications for future animal effluent storage and discharge of effluent to the land must be submitted by early June.

ORC consents acting manager Alexandra King said last year’s (2022) effluent rule changes offer greater protections to keeping Otago’s waterways healthy.

“Ultimately, these protections are to safeguard the future of waterways, which directly support various natural ecosystems, including farmland,” she said.

The new provisions introduced last year include setting minimum standards for animal effluent storage and its application to land and for establishing small in-stream sediment traps.

Alexandra said farmers need to start thinking about the volume of effluent storage they have on their farm, and when they need to potentially install new storage facilities or have the resource consents in place to do so.  

Dairy farms are covered by the rules but other farm types where liquid animal effluent is collected may also need consent, and people are recommended to check in with the ORC consents team.

Alexandra said the first series of consent applications need to be in by June 4, 2023.

ORC staff are here to help farmers and have plenty of resources available, she added.

In June last year, ORC councillors ratified changes to the operative Regional Plan: Water for Otago, which allowed some key parts of proposed ‘Plan change 8’, which related to rural discharges, to become operative - which started from 4 June last year (2022).

Find more information here.