Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has tak­en a hands off ap­proach in­to the treat­ing of ef­flu­ent dis­charges of An­gos­tu­ra Ltd. In fact, Sun­day Guardian has learnt that An­gos­tu­ra Ltd is set to com­mence dis­cus­sions with a con­trac­tor in re­la­tion to the con­struc­tion of a plant to treat its own dis­charges. The move, fol­lows a front page ar­ti­cle re­cent­ly pub­lished in the Sun­day Guardian two weeks ago high­light­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal and health haz­ard caused by the failed anaer­o­bic di­gester berms at the Beetham Waste­water Treat­ment Plant.

Con­firm­ing the move yes­ter­day, WASA's com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist Ellen Lewis stat­ed: "We met with An­gos­tu­ra Ltd two weeks ago and reaf­firmed a pri­or es­tab­lished po­si­tion that they are re­spon­si­ble for the man­age­ment and treat­ment of the waste emit­ted from their plant in ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices. "The au­thor­i­ty is in no way ob­lig­at­ed in this mat­ter. An­gos­tu­ra Ltd has a du­ty there­fore to con­struct the ap­pro­pri­ate treat­ment fa­cil­i­ty for any waste gen­er­at­ed in its prod­uct ion process."

The find­ings of a re­port sub­mit­ted to the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Em­manuel George, Lewis said con­clud­ed that An­gos­tu­ra Ltd must as­sume full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its ef­flu­ent treat­ment pri­or to dis­charges in­to the en­vi­ron­ment in ac­cor­dance with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.