Hydraulic fracking in California uses a host of highly toxic chemicals that have unknown effects on drinking water supplies, wildlife and crops because state regulatory agencies don't fully understand what oil companies are doing, a state science panel warned Thursday.
The findings are in a long-awaited final report by the California Council on Science and Technology, which studied the issue for the Legislature. Among the conclusions:
--Oil operators have unrestricted use of hazardous and uncharacterized chemicals. Voluntary reporting by oil companies details the use of more than 300 chemical additives, many of them unknown to science.