Environmental groups are urging New Jersey lawmakers to override Governor Christie’s veto of a bill that would have banned fracking waste from entering the state.

The environmental groups say the waste from natural gas drilling in other states would add to New Jersey’s pollution problems and could threaten water supplies.

Tracy Carluccio with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network says the waste produced by extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing may be worse than environmentalists thought.
 

“We have a thousand chemicals in play here, and many of them are carcinogenic, have very serious human health and environmental impacts, and many of them are even unregulated chemicals that don’t have proper safe drinking water standards attached to them.”

New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel says the state’s wastewater treatment plants can not safely treat all the chemicals used when drilling for natural gas.

He says fracking waste would have added to the problems caused by Hurricane Sandy.
 

“If fracking waste was being stored in New Jersey or processed here we would have taken a disaster and turned it into a tragedy with billions of gallons of toxic waste going into our waterways.”

Every previous attempt by the legislature to override a Christie veto has failed.

Tittel says environmentalists are hoping for a different outcome in an election year when voters may pay closer attention to lawmakers’ voting records.