A Taranaki farmer previously convicted and fined $60,000 for moving a stream on his property has this week admitted to doing it again. 

Colin Boyd pleaded guilty to four charges brought against him by the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) when he appeared in New Plymouth District Court on Wednesday. 

Between October and November 2019, Boyd carried out a "significant amount" of earthworks in and around a section of the Mangatengehu Stream at his Surrey Rd, Inglewood, farm. 

The work included Boyd diverting the stream in an effort to reclaim part of its bed. 

As a result, there was a discharge of sediment into the stream due to the silt and sediment controls being inadequate. 

It is not the first time Boyd has run into legal trouble for his farming practices. 

He is the sole director of Mile Square Farms Limited, the company which has owned the 480ha dairy farm, also used for quarrying and land farming activities, for about 25 years. 

In 2016, a jury found him guilty of diverting a stream through his property three years earlier. 

He was fined $60,000, one of the largest fines imposed by the court for environmental matters in Taranaki at the time. 

At the trial, Boyd claimed the diversion occurred naturally due to a flood but at his sentencing the judge said it had been a deliberate attempt to improve the quality of his farm. 

Additionally, he was served with 17 abatement notices between 2009 and 2019, and six infringement notices. 

Farmer Colin Boyd diverted the stream in an effort to reclaim part of its bed. Photo/Taranaki Regional Council 

Boyd's latest spate of offending came to light on October 27, 2019, when council officers responded to a complaint that the stream was discoloured. 

Officers found a diversion channel had been constructed at the site, resulting in the reclamation of a 278m section of the stream. 

The majority of the associated riparian vegetation had been removed and around 160m of the stream had been drained. 

The diversion channel had intercepted the stream and directed both surface water and groundwater into an existing land drainage channel which then directed the flow back into the stream about 180m downstream at a neighbouring property. 

Significant scour and erosion occurred as a result, and silt and sediment were flowing into the stream. 

No silt and sediment control measures were in place. 

Boyd was then issued with two abatement notices; one requiring him to immediately cease all earthworks and the associated silt and sediment discharge, and another that ordered him to install the controls by November 3, 2019. 

A reinspection of the site found that Boyd had installed controls within the channel of the diversion but they were insufficient to cope with significant rainfall. 

A further abatement notice was issued to Boyd in relation to the controls, and further reinspections found him repeatedly in breach of the notices. 

Significant erosion continued to occur within the channel and surrounding areas. 

One inspection, on November 29, 2019, found a digger near the site which Boyd had used to undertake further works within the stream, including the installation of a large concrete culvert. 

When a council officer raised this with Boyd, Boyd said he believed the abatement notice to cease earthworks had only applied to the immediate area around the diversion. 

In court, Boyd pleaded guilty to four charges, all of which were continuing offences, brought under the Resource Management Act 1991. Three further charges were withdrawn. 

On March 22 this year, he will be sentenced on intermittently discharging sediment into the stream, intermittently discharging sediment on to land in circumstances which may result in that contaminant entering the water, reclaiming the bed of a river, and breach of an abatement notice. 

The maximum penalty for each offence is two years' imprisonment or a fine of $300,000. A further maximum penalty of $10,000 per day can be imposed for continuing offences. 

- by Tara Shaskey, Open Justice