Study says fracking sites raise the risk of low-weight babies

Living within a half mile of a hydraulic fracturing site carries a serious risk for pregnant women, a study says. The drilling technique, known as fracking, injects high pressure water laced with chemicals into underground rock to release oil and natural gas.

Women who lived within that distance to hydraulic fracturing operations in Pennsylvania were 25 percent more likely to give birth to low-weight infants than expecting mothers who lived more than 2 miles beyond the sites.

The five-year study of more than 1.1 million births in the state, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, also found lower birth weights, although not as low, in infants whose mothers lived between a half mile and 2 miles from a fracking site. Beyond 2 miles, there was no indication of any health impact to newborns, a significant drop-off.

“I think I was surprised by the magnitude of the impact within the half mile radius,” said Michael Greenstone, a professor and director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, and one of three authors of the study.

There are about 4 million births per year in the United States, and according to the study’s research, about 30,000 births are within a half mile of a fracking site and 100,000 births are within two miles. “I don’t think that’s an insubstantial number,” Greenstone said.

Greenstone said it’s important to not read too much into the study’s conclusion. “I like to joke that there’s a little bit for everyone to hate in this paper,” he said. “There’s a big effect within one kilometer of sites, which the oil and gas industry dislikes, but the impact on the population beyond that may not be massive, which opponents of fracking won’t like.”

Greenstone’s co-authors were Janet Currie, a Princeton University economics professor, and Katherine Meckel, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California at Los Angeles.