The plan would have cost the 26 municipalities using the county-owned Yonkers Joint Sewage Treatment Plant an estimated $400 million.

The manhole connects to the county-owned sewer system that leads to the Yonkers Joint Sewage Treatment Plant.

The Yonkers Joint Sewage Treatment Plant, which handles 65 percent of the county's sewage, generates about 35 tons of dry sludge a day.

Sewage is treated and then released back into the Susquehanna downstream, at the Binghamton-Johnson City Joint Sewage Treatment Plant.

But they did so reluctantly, with the four members who represent Yonkers voting against the request, which they said would continue unfair pressure on the already overburdened Yonkers Joint Sewage Treatment Plant.

The process he planned to use should please Yonkers residents, Mr. Bernacchia said, because the new sludge plant will be built on property adjacent to the Yonkers Joint Sewage Treatment Plant, thus eliminating truck traffic on city streets.

The 100,000 gallons of sewage that the Hawthorne receiving station contributes to the Yonkers Joint Sewage Treatment Plant on an average daily basis is "insignificant" when compared with the 80 million to 100 million gallons the huge plant processes each day, Mr. Landi said.