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Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has an­nounced that the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has been grant­ed a one-year mora­to­ri­um by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), tem­porar­i­ly avoid­ing a po­ten­tial $35 mil­lion an­nu­al fine for non-com­pli­ance at the Beetham Waste­water Treat­ment Plant.

The mora­to­ri­um of­fers WASA a crit­i­cal win­dow to bring the age­ing fa­cil­i­ty up to en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards and avoid cost­ly penal­ties that had loomed over the Au­thor­i­ty due to per­sis­tent ef­flu­ent dis­charge vi­o­la­tions.

Padarath made the com­ment on Sat­ur­day dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.