Irish Water is set to abandon plans for a reed bed filtration system at a proposed new water treatment plant in north Donegal.
It follows opposition to those particular proposals from TDs Charlie McConalogue and Joe McHugh as well as a local primary school.
Irish Water wants to build a treatment plant near Brownknowe National School which will serve Ramelton, Milford and Rathmullan.
It will be located inside a forest, with the entrance to the facility 600 metres away from the school.
But it was the plan for acres of reed beds to further filtrate the treated waste water which caused most alarm in the area.
Now Donegal Daily has learned that the reed bed plan is to be dropped from the proposals.
Members of the public also complained about the reed bed system during a public consultation evening in Milford in October.
We understand Irish Water will next week confirm they are now looking at alternative solutions to sewage treatment in the area.
Currently untreated effluent is causing huge damage to Lough Swilly, with Rathmullan unable to secure blue flag status for its beach.
The proposed new system will have a series of pumping stations which will take effluent from Ramelton, Rathmullan and Milford to the proposed treatment plant.