by Jolene Toves

Guam - Now in the eleventh year of its stipulated order court order and with an amendment to the court order in 2011 that set a new time line for the remaining projects, GWA has a lot of work ahead which requires funding.

Wednesday night's Consolidated Commission on Utilities meeting brought good news for GWA, moving forward and demonstrating compliance with the court order. CCU chariman Simon Sanchez said, "One is we authorized an engineering study to commence for the Umatac, Malesso Waste Water Facility we are required by court order to upgrade that facility and we want to do some interim upgrades that we can do before we borrow the bigger money that will permanently solve the problems down there."

The CCU approved the engineering request for $190,000 to design the solution that would help GWA do interim improvements at the Umatac and Malesso Waste Water Treatment Facility.

Meanwhile, the CCU also approved the final $330,000 of spending money for the Ugum Water Treatment Plant, which was part of the original court order. Sanchez says significant upgrades to the water quality are already complete turning the focus to storage capacity. "We're on the final work for a $12 million upgrade for Ugum, $10.5 million coming from bond funds that we borrowed in 2010. We got a million and a half dollar grant from USEPA to help that project," he said.

Sanchez says the board's approval of the $330,000 will allow for the completion of the $12 million upgrade by early next year.