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Lawmakers Fight Bill To Send Fracking Wastewater To L.I. Sewage Treatment Plant

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (AP) -- Two New York legislators are filing a bill that would keep their Long Island county from accepting toxic wastewater from drilling in a gas-rich region that includes New York.

Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn and Deputy Presiding Officer Wayne Horsley say a sewage treatment plant in West Babylon should not become a dumping site for hydraulic fracturing -- or hydro-fracking.

Chemicals are used to extract gas from within the earth.

The Suffolk plant was named as a potential site to process the waste in a draft environmental impact statement prepared by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation.

Hahn says she's dumfounded anyone could think an environmentally-sensitive area like Long Island would be a good site.

In some communities, gas from hydrofracking has leaked into drinking water, setting it afire.

What do you think of hydraulic fracturing? Sound off in our comments section below...

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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