— — North Tonawanda and Niagara Falls are the only municipalities in the state with the capabilities to process contaminated water used in hydraulic fracturing, though as it stands there are no plans in place to allow it to happen. Yet.

Waste water treatment plants in both cities were outfitted with the capacity to handle heavy industrial waste in the 1970s, following federal legislation that created the U.S. Clean Water Act, which led to the expansion of the facilities’ capabilities to use carbon filters in a chemical process that cleans the water.

And while there are indications that leaders in Niagara Falls are in favor of permitting the waste to be treated at its location, North Tonawanda Mayor Rob Ortt said he has yet to make a decision either way nor has he received any correspondence regarding the issue. That sentiment was repeated by several members of the city council Tuesday.

“At this point I haven’t been approached within anyone who wants to do it so therefore I don’t have two sides of the argument,” Ortt said. “I still understand there are environmental concerns but until somebody comes to me and says ‘I want to send water to North Tonawanda and this is what I want to pay’ there’s no need for the city to have a discussion at this point.”

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation continue to pursue separate studies on the possibility of allowing the drilling in several areas across New York, which are expected to be released in the next year.

Bill Davignon, a chemist at the North Tonawanda treatment facility, said he still recalls regularly being unable to swim in the Niagara River and Lake Ontario during the 1960s and 1970s due to high levels of bacteria caused from decades of unchecked industrial waste.

And while the plant he works at does have the capacity to take in waste water from the process more commonly known as hydrofracking, those memories continue to persist.

Davignon, who has worked at the plant for the last quarter century, said there are approximately 750 chemicals used in hydrofracking. And he doesn’t want a repeat of his younger years.

“Out of those 750, 25 percent of them are hazardous or known carcinogens,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea at all. Right now we are keeping our water at a very high level of quality and I want to keep it that way. If we’re trying to treat (waste water) I don’t want to be drinking it. It took us this long to clean up the Great Lakes I don’t think we need to contaminate it with more chemicals.”

Should hydrofracking be approved, early estimates foreshadow millions of gallons of waste in need of disposal, while the process used to extract natural gas from shale has the backing of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Sen. George Maziarz. Both have claimed the financial benefits outweigh the negative environmental effects that may take place in a region under the shadow of a decades-long economic decline.

City Engineer Dale Marshall said the plant has the capacity to treat up to 3 million gallons each day under dry weather conditions, though he admits that despite the fact accepting the waste would bring a hefty revenue stream, “there would be a lot of issues to work through.”

Additionally, Davignon said the waste would require a pre-treatment process that his facility is equipped to deal with, but due to toxicity levels he would advise against.

“Carbon doesn’t remove everything,” he said. “Carbon strips a lot of organic compounds and those are the ones you’d really like to get rid of. But carbon doesn’t remove all of them.”