Pittsburg Post-Gazette: Study cites lower birth weights near fracking

Babies born to women living near high-density shale gas drilling and fracking sites in three southwestern Pennsylvania counties were more likely to have lower birth weights than babies born to women living further away, according to a new University of Pittsburgh health study.

The peer-reviewed study by researchers at Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health does not prove a causual link between low baby birth weights and drilling sites. But it does show a “concerning association” that builds on findings of earlier studies in Colorado and in Pennsylvania by investigators at Cornell University, said Bruce Pitt, study co-author and chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health in the Graduate School of Public Health. 

The Pitt study reviewed 15,451 births in Washington, Westmoreland and Butler counties between 2007 and 2010, and cross-referenced the mother’s residences to Marcellus Shale gas wells that had been hydraulically fractured or ”fracked,“ a gas extraction process that pumps millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the shale formation thousands of feet underground to crack the rock and release the gas it contains.

Read the full article HERE