Council has twice delayed the vote on the mayor’s proposed deal with American Landfill, in which the landfill would build a 12-mile pipeline to pump its liquid waste – called leachate --  north to the city’s sewage treatment plant. In return, the landfill would give the city a cut rate to bury its sewage sludge.

Opponents are protesting that the landfill accepts materials from hydraulic shale drilling. Canton Law Director Joe Martuccio notes it is not the water used in fracking, but the mud from drilling deep wells that  some fear contains low-level radiation and other toxic chemicals.

“The concern is that those chemicals and that radiation will make its way into the leachate and … into our water treatment plant and possibly survive the treatment and end up in our water ways. On the other hand, someone is going to have to treat it so why not make the treatment the best it can be.”

The administration insists it can handle the waste safely, and it needs an alternative to burning its sludge because of new air pollution rules.