Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½Ò•îl

Living within half a mile of a hydraulic fracturing site carries a serious risk for pregnant women, a new study has found. The drilling technique, also known as fracking, injects high-pressure water laced with chemicals into underground rock to release natural gas. Women who lived within that distance to fracking operations in Pennsylvania were 25 percent more likely to give birth to low-weight infants than were mothers who lived more than two miles beyond the sites. (Fears, 12/13)

That research underscores a problem that has bedeviled the industry and regulators: While the benefits of hydraulic fracturing are widespread, the costs are very localized. The drilling and completion technologies commonly known as fracking have turned the U.S. into an energy superpower while lowering both energy prices and carbon dioxide emissions. To accommodate the industry’s rapid growth over the past decade, several regions of the country—including parts of Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas and North Dakota—have been turned into industrialized zones, sometimes overlapping with communities. (Gold, 12/13)

Many of the toxic chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process are known carcinogens. Toxic gases, including benzene, are released from the rock by fracking. And the high-pressure pumping of a slurry of chemicals into the ground is widely thought to release toxins and irritants into nearby air and water. The noise and pollution emitted by trucks and heavy machinery also may affect the health of people living nearby. (Healy, 12/13)