Noah Addis / for NBC News

Dairy farmer Carol French holds a jar of water taken in July 2012 from the tap in her home in Sheshequin Township, Pa. French says her water first turned cloudy in March 2011, not long after natural gas companies began conducting hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, nearby.

BRADFORD COUNTY, Pa. — Carol French still has the canning jar full of cloudy and gelatinous water that came out of her well right before her daughter got sick and some of her 40 milk cows developed a rash. She agrees that this jar, by itself, proves nothing about the environmental impact of "fracking," the drilling technology largely responsible for America's boom in oil and gas production. You can't determine the environmental effects of drilling and fracking from one person's Mason jar full of water.

"I can't say it's definitely from the drilling, but there's strong circumstantial evidence," French said, referring to nearby natural gas drilling using fracking.

Making that direct connection often isn't possible even with 1,100 jars. That's how many examples are on a "list of the harmed," people who have offered personal stories of harm from fracking, as tallied by the advocacy group Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air. 

Beyond such anecdotes, many facts about fracking's impact on the environment remain hotly contested. Consequences like water contamination have been established, but often it is not clear if they were directly caused by fracking or the result of sloppy drilling practices.

Meanwhile, the scientific studies that do exist suggest there are inconvenient truths for both sides of the fracking debate to confront.

The biggest hurdle for the pro-industry side: The rapid expansion of fracking over the last five years has resulted in confirmed cases of drinking water contamination, a house explosion, and air pollution.

But for those who oppose fracking, there is this: Burning the natural gas produced by fracking may be much better for the environment and public health, over the long run, than burning coal.

As detailed in the first three installments of Power Shift, an NBC News/CNBC special report, the United States is experiencing an energy boom created by new drilling technologies that have unlocked vast domestic oil and natural gas reserves. Proponents of fracking praise its economic benefits, while many foreign policy experts say this developing energy independence may give the U.S. new leverage in world affairs.

Many experts say that concern about the environmental consequences of fracking and other new drilling technologies may be the biggest obstacle to the continued growth of this newfound domestic energy supply. 

The  future of the industry may depend on whether more cases of environmental damage are documented, and whether they are regarded as unlikely accidents or the inevitable consequence of this expanding search for energy resources. That could, in turn, lead to stricter regulation that could slow or halt new drilling.

Interactive map: Where the U.S. produces its energy. Click to enlarge

For now, your view of the energy boom may depend on whether drilling and fracking are happening in your back yard, as they have been in Carol French's back yard in northeast Pennsylvania since 2008. Bradford County is the busiest fracking county in the state. Just across the border, in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is considering whether or not to allow fracking, which he says would take place only under "toughest-in-the-nation" environmental regulations. Much of the countryside in both states sits above the Marcellus Shale, the gas-rich band of rock that stretches to Ohio and West Virginia.

Water issues are in dispute 
To get the natural gas out of crevices deep underground, companies must pump in vast quantities of water and sand, under enough pressure to fracture rock and release the gas trapped inside. Also in the slurry that comes back up as waste water: toxic chemicals, including some that cause cancer, damage the nervous system, disrupt hormones and mutate genes. And those are just the ones we know about. Oil and gas companies in some states haven’t been compelled to say what’s in their brew, so some don’t.

The companies say the health risks are minimal. As of August 2011, oil and gas companies still said there had never been a documented case of drinking water contaminated by fracking. (The industry claim may still technically be true, using the industry definition of "fracking" to refer only to the process that happens after the drill hole is dug, not the drilling activities necessary before the fracking can occur.)

Reuters

How fracking works. Click to enlarge.

The first blemish on the industry's clean record came in a New York Times article documenting such a case from the 1980s. (Demonstration projects for hydraulic fracking began decades earlier in the U.S., though it didn't become common until the early 2000s.) Then came the most-publicized case of well-water contamination near fracking operations, in Dimock Township, Pa., just east of Bradford County; the federal Environmental Protection Agency said in 2012 that preliminary results found the water was safe to drink, though it did contain chemicals as well as explosive methane. Those results have been debated. The nonprofit investigative news organization Pro Publica has reported numerous confirmed health and safety problems related to drilling and fracking, including a house explosion near Cleveland, Ohio, after gas leaked into the home's water well.

Fracking is now regulated almost entirely by the states, though the EPA is slowly moving toward federal regulation. In the meantime, government has only lightly tapped the brakes to tighten regulation of the industry.

Drinking water contamination has been the biggest public relations problem for the industry. But the contaminants can come from several sources: from the hydraulic fracturing process itself, from the waste water, from the pits where drilling chemicals are stored, or from transporting chemicals and wastewater. The industry says that examples of contamination are very rare. Lisa Jackson, who was then then the EPA administrator, echoed the industry position that problems aren't systemic to fracking. "If you get a bad operator in there, somebody who’s not responsible, who’s not seeing how important it is to get this right, they can contaminate an aquifer," she said in a June 2011 talk. Environmentalists argue that pollution is an unavoidable part of the drilling process, not the result of shoddy practices.

It’s theoretically possible, though unproven, that some of the tainted water and dangerous gases might travel through deep underground crevices to unexpected places, such as the aquifers used for private wells and community water supplies. A July 2012 study by researchers at Duke University and California State Polytechnic University at Pomona found that salty water from deep underground could make its way into drinking water near the surface.

At the surface, there have also been outright accidents, leaking oil and toxins. Well casings have cracked, and sometimes pumping in more concrete for a "squeeze job" to stop the escaping water and chemicals won't stop the damage.

In Bradford County, the pleasant pond at the vacation home of Truman and Bonnie Burnett is a murky swamp, ringed by dead trees, after tens of thousands of gallons of drilling fluid spilled in 2009 from the property of their neighbor, who had signed a gas lease. His wife won't come back to their vacation home anymore, Truman Burnett says, so he has nailed a framed photo of her on a tree.

An industry lobbying group in North Dakota, where fracking is common, said the industry is doing what it can, but some mistakes are inevitable.

"You're going to have spills when you have more activity," Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, told a reporter with the investigative journalism organization Pro Publica, which documented more than 1,000 accidental oil spills in North Dakota in 2011.

Related story

Sorting through the claims, counterclaims about environmental impact of 'fracking,' 

Advice for a neighbor
"Our water changed on March 15, 2011," said Carol French, the dairy farmer, a few months after the drilling began in December 2010. What remains unclear is whether health issues experienced by her daughter and some of her cows afterward were caused by the turbid tapwater.

"My daughter was 24 at the time," French said. "She had a high fever for three days. I thought she had the flu. She had stabbing pains in her abdomen, and diarrhea. ... When I took her to the emergency room they checked her urine and blood to only find that the white blood cell count was high in her urine not in her blood. They then did a MRI to find that she had 'free floating fluid' in her abdomen, and her spleen, liver, and right ovary were enlarged. They didn't know what was wrong with her."

Then her daughter went to stay with a friend while looking for work. "Nine days later, all symptoms were gone and she was acting like herself," her mother said.

When she came back to visit, the symptoms returned. "When I would visit my daughter, my rashes would disappear, but return within five days after returning to my home. Our cattle seem to have breeding problems, but I can't say it's strictly due to my water changing without tests being done."

Now she has bad water a few times a month. When the tap water gets cloudy, she drives around to the nine gas well pads within a mile of her farm, writing down which ones have trucks and men working. She agrees that alone is a fruitless way of identifying a cause.

Slideshow: Drilling down and out in Texas

Jim Seida / NBC News

Watch a drilling crew at work near the small town of Garden City as they drill an oil well that eventually will extend more than a mile deep and a mile sideways in the Permian Basin.

Launch slideshow

She hasn't tested her water yet; nor has the state Department of Environmental Protection. They've been squabbling over the rules of how to test and whether the state will act if the results implicate the fracking operations. It's going to cost her $3,200 to get a lab to test for all the acids, detergents and poisons that companies say they use for fracking – or hydraulic fracturing – to break up underground shale and remove oil and natural gas.

Meanwhile, she tests her water for coliform and E. coli bacteria, meeting USDA and FDA standards for a dairy operation, and she ships the milk off to America's food supply.

No studies have found fracking chemicals have entered the food chain. Two Cornell University researchers have reported health impacts on cattle near drilling operations, but industry backers called the study "deeply  flawed."   

French started out as a supporter of fracking. She signed her own gas lease to allow fracking on the farm near Ulster, pocketing $13,600 starting back in 2006, but no company drilled on her land. Now she questions the economic benefits of fracking and worries about the environmental consequences.

"The standards of yesteryear," she said, "do not meet the industrial activities surrounding us. Like my milk inspector told me, 'You cannot find something you are not looking for.'"

A lot of her neighbors in the county, however, have put serious money in their pockets.

Among them is Robert "Bob" Wilmot, a former pipefitter who was able to rebuild a bed and breakfast he runs with his wife ("the best cook in the county," he says) in the small Bradford County town of Rome. He got $5 an acre for a gas lease on his 250-plus acres, then $75,000 more to let the gas company turn his hay field into a pond, and another $25,000 to allow a pipeline. Everyone in the county has heard stories of people making hundreds of thousands, even millions for one of the big compressor stations that send the gas down the pipeline. When the gas rush began here, churches put up signs such as "Thank God the gas companies are here."

Wilmot says he has confidence in the gas companies, and if anything he believes the state regulators are too tough.

But Wilmot does have a few reservations. Asked what advice would he offer to the people ten miles up the road in New York, which is considering fracking, he replied. 

"I'd go ahead. I wouldn't be in favor of putting fracking over by the Finger Lakes. That's a beautiful area. You can't replace them lakes."

Bill Dedman is an investigative reporter for NBC News; he reported from Pennsylvania. Karen Weintraub is a freelance health and science reporter in Boston.

More from Power Shift, an NBC News/CNBC special report:

Part 1: Energy boom dawning in America

Part 2: Oil, gas sector fuels US economy

Part 3: How the energy boom could shake up the global order

Without fanfare, China passed the United States in December to become the world's leading importer of oil – the first time in nearly 40 years that the U.S. didn’t own that dubious distinction. That same month, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania together produced 1.5 million barrels of oil a day -- more than Iran exported.

As those data points demonstrate, a dramatic shift is occurring in how energy is being produced and consumed around the world – one that could lead to far-reaching changes in the geopolitical order.

U.S. policy makers, intelligence analysts and other experts are beginning to grapple with the ramifications of such a change, which could bring with it both great benefits for the U.S. and potentially dangerous consequences, including the risk of upheaval in countries and regions heavily dependent on oil exports. 

But many experts say the U.S. would be the big winner, in position to reshape its foreign policy and boost its global influence. 

"People already are looking at the U.S. differently, seeing the U.S. as much more competitive in the world,” said energy analyst and author Dan Yergin, saying that he first noticed the change in the world view of the U.S. at the World Economic Forum in January in Davos, Switzerland.

Slideshow: Drilling down and out in Texas

Jim Seida / NBC News

Watch a drilling crew at work near the small town of Garden City, Texas, as they drill an oil well that eventually will extend more than a mile deep and a mile sideways in the Permian Basin.

Launch slideshow

As detailed in the first two installments of Power Shift, an NBC News/CNBC special report, the United States is reaping the benefits of an energy boom created by new drilling technologies that have unlocked vast domestic oil and natural gas reserves. Coupled with decreasing demand due to energy efficiency and continued cultivation of alternative energy sources, an increasing number of experts believe the U.S. could achieve energy independence by the end of the decade – realizing a dream born during the gas crisis of 1973.

But who would be the global winners and losers in such a scenario?

Most U.S. policy makers and experts agree that the U.S. and its allies – particularly its North American neighbors -- would be the biggest beneficiaries.

Boom helps Iran sanctions stick
In fact, they say, the West already has realized one major benefit: the success of international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Carlos Pascual, the State Department’s coordinator for international energy affairs, noted last month at the CERAWEEK energy conference in Houston that increased U.S. oil production, coupled with a boost in exports from Iraq and Libya, has kept oil prices stable despite the loss, because of sanctions, of up to 1.5 million barrels a day in Iranian exports.

“What this has taught us, and helped underscore, is that within the world we live in today, hard security issues and energy policy issues have become fundamentally intertwined,” he said.

Interactive map: Where the US produces its energy. Click to enlarge.

Yergin, who also is a CNBC energy consultant and author of the energy-focused nonfiction best-sellers "The Quest" and "The Prize," put it this way: "People talk of the future impact. The increase in U.S oil production has already had an impact: Sanctions wouldn't have been effective without U.S. oil production. …  We've added (within the last year) almost as much as Iran was exporting before sanctions.”

Hossein Moussavian, a former Iranian ambassador to Germany and nuclear negotiator who's now a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, said "the radicals" in Tehran failed to foresee the changing energy picture, believing that sanctions wouldn't be imposed and that, if they were, they wouldn't work because oil prices would surge.

"The Iranian mistake was to believe …  the threats of referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council, imposing sanctions, was just a bluff," he said.

In the longer term, observers say that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and many of its member nations are likely to be the biggest losers if the U.S. continues to cut oil imports, likely decreasing oil prices in the process.

"A dramatic expansion of U.S. production could … push global spare capacity to exceed 8 million barrels per day, at which point OPEC could lose price control and crude oil prices would drop, possibly sharply," the U.S. intelligence community's internal think tank, the National Intelligence Council, said in its “Global Trends 2030” report in December. "Such a drop would take a heavy toll on many energy producers who are increasingly dependent on relatively high energy prices to balance their budgets."

With some analysts predicting that oil prices could drop as low as $70 to $90 a barrel – down from the current price of nearly $110 per barrel of Brent crude oil – a “scramble” among OPEC members for market share could ensue, said Edward Morse, an energy analyst with Citigroup and co-author of a recent report on titled “Energy 2020: Independence Day.”

An International Monetary Fund analysis indicates that many major oil-producing states need more than that lowest price level to meet their budgets and would be forced to increase output or reduce spending, which could trigger unrest. Among them, according to the report: Iran, Libya and Russia, at $117 a barrel; Iraq, $112; Yemen, $237; and the UAE, $84.

Iraq, which has had production from its rich oil fields curtailed by war or sanctions for half of the 53 years of OPEC’s existence, poses another challenge to the organization.

Now that it’s finally free of such interference, its production is increasing by between 500,000 and 900,000 barrels a year, making it the second fastest growing oil-producing country in the world after the U.S. 

“And, by God, no one’s going to impose any quota limitations on them,” said Morse, referring to Iraq’s OPEC partners. “So part of the challenge to OPEC is internal as well as external.”

Can Saudis maintain market-maker role?
Analysts say OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia, which controls vast reserves of oil and needs $71 a barrel to meet its budget, according to the IMF, will do everything it can to remain the market-maker. But in that role, it will face new challenges, they say.

“Over time, it should become increasingly challenging for Saudi Arabia to ‘overproduce’ and bring down prices to punish wayward OPEC members; without this disciplinary mechanism, it is unclear whether OPEC can remain cohesive,” according to the Citigroup report.

For its part, OPEC professes to be not unduly alarmed by the U.S. oil and natural gas boom. It highlights the "considerable uncertainties" surrounding wells drilled using hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” and associated technologies.

Yergin said he believes that the Saudis will be able to withstand the turbulence, and that they will provide a buffer for the organization’s lesser producers.

“It's too quick to write the obit for OPEC,” he said. “… The Saudis will figure it out. They are re-orientated to Asian markets, turning left instead of right.”

But some members of the oil cartel -- particularly Nigeria and Angola -- already are feeling the impact of the U.S. production surge, according to the Citigroup report. U.S. imports from the two countries dropped to 700,000 barrels a day at the end of 2012, down from 1.6 million barrels in 2007. That’s because U.S. production of light, sweet crude -- the kind of oil the West African nations produce -- has burgeoned in recent years. Citigroup forecasts that by the end of 2013, the market for Nigerian oil at Gulf Coast refineries could entirely dry up.

Longer term, say by 2020, cheaper heavy oil from Canada, freed from the so-called oil sands by new recovery technologies, could push similar oil from Venezuela out of the U.S. Gulf Coast market,  (assuming the Obama administration approves construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to carry it), according to forecasts.

Mexico also is expected to increase production, offering the U.S. access to another convenient and friendly provider.

"The Eagle Ford formation in Texas extends into Mexico and if you look at the Gulf, you'll see thousands of black dots marking oil platforms on the U.S. side but nothing on the Mexican side,” said Yergin. “That's changing. There is a political consensus among the three major parties on energy. You will see less immigration from Mexico. Mexico could become more of a BRIC (the term used for fast-developing economies like Brazil, Russia, India and China) than Brazil."

Besides guaranteeing a stable domestic energy supply, those energy resources add tools to the U.S. diplomatic toolbox, said David L. Phillips, director of the Peace-building and Human Rights Program at Columbia University.

"Why permit ourselves to be held hostage to regimes hostile to our national interests and who give safe harbor to those who would do us harm?" he asked. "… The glaring example is Venezuela. (Hugo) Chavez was so strongly anti-American and he was providing energy to our enemies. They should pay the price for non-cooperation."

Current and former diplomats note that the U.S. also could use its increased natural gas production to weaken rival Russia’s near monopoly on natural gas exports to Europe, via its state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. Already, declining prices fueled by the U.S. boom have benefited the European market.

"What has emerged is a competitive market that allowed the utilities of Western Europe to renegotiate their contract with Gazprom, affecting both prices and financing terms," said the State Department’s Pascual.

Adding to the pressure, the U.S. firm Cheniere Energy last month signed a 20-year deal to export enough liquefied natural gas to the British utility Centrica PLC to heat 1.8 million homes starting in 2018 – the first pact of its kind.

Growth slowing in China, India
As for China and India, both of which are expected to import increasing amounts of energy for years to come, analysts see indications that economic growth is slowing in both countries.

“In a pattern similar to the abrupt slowdown in demand growth seen in the Asian Tigers in the 1990s, Chinese demand growth has slowed to a more tepid 3 (percent) to 5 percent rate as compared to the double-digit growth seen in the early 2000s,” said a Citigroup report by analyst Seth Kleinman released last week.

That slowdown is in part due to the diminishing competitive edge that China enjoys over the U.S., Yergin said.

“Chinese wages are going up 20 percent a year. U.S. energy efficiency and increased production helps the U.S. in the mix on the global competitive landscape, he said, noting that Dow Chemical recently announced it will invest $4 billion in U.S. petrochemical production. “…That doesn’t happen without the U.S. advantage in energy.”

Citigroup's Morse and other analysts said the slowing Chinese economy and energy insecurity could prompt China to more militarization in the Far East -- a dangerous development in a region already beset by nationalist disputes and where the U.S. is expected to focus increasing attention. But none suggests that the Chinese are likely to challenge the United States as a global power, saying Beijing has neither the military assets nor the desire. Its strategy remains regional and attuned to "short-range engagements," Morse wrote.

The impact of the rebalancing of global energy production could be more severe in other nations.

Trevor Houser, a former energy analyst in the Obama administration State Department, worries about the prospect of failed states.

"If you look at the consequences of more U.S. production and reduced sales from OPEC, some would see that as a benefit," said Houser, now a partner with New York-based Rhodium Group, a global market analysis firm. "But starving those economies of oil revenue will surely have disruptive effects. It is not necessarily a good development for U.S. foreign policy and geopolitical stability in general."

AP file/Hassan Ammar

A U.S. F-18 fighter jet, left, lands on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln as a U.S. destroyer sails alongside during exercises in the Persian Gulf in 2012.

Houser also said that U.S. energy independence could lead to isolationist policies, but will not insulate Americans from global price disruptions.

"The price Americans pay at the pump will still be determined by events in the global oil market, yet falling U.S. oil imports (are) going to reduce political support for safeguarding those global markets, and no one is willing or able to step up to the plate to replace us,” he said. “... The U.S. economy will still be vulnerable if someone blows up a Saudi port."

More from Power Shift, an NBC News/CNBC special report:

Part 1: Energy boom dawning in America

Part 2:  Oil, gas sector fuels US economy

That issue – specifically, “Do we leave the Middle East once our energy needs are secure?” – came up at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, said Yergin, recalling that “an oil minister came up to me and said, ‘Please don’t leave us.’”

Pascual, the State Department official, argues that such fears are overblown.

"These changes in no way change the U.S. commitment to global security, to peace and stability in the Middle East and to security in the transit lanes,” he said, referring to oil shipping routes. “Some people have asked is the United States going to become disinterested. The answer is no. It is absolutely in our self-interest to stay engaged.”

Richard Engel is NBC News' chief foreign correspondent; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer. 

Coming next Monday: Digging into the environmental consequences of 'fracking' 

More from Open Channel:

• Suspect in death of Colo. prisons director threatened to kill prison staff
• Seniors 'brainwashed' by controversial scooter ads, doctor says
• Sandusky: Paterno would not have let me coach if he thought I was a pedophile

Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook 

Scott Olson / Getty Images

In President Obama's Chicago, one of the metro areas with very weak economic growth in new economic data, job seekers listen in 2009 to a recruiter during a job fair held by the City Colleges of Chicago.

The limping gait of the U.S. economy remains painful for many Americans and for President Barack Obama's re-election chances, with the vast majority of metro areas making only small, halting steps toward recovery, according to the latest Adversity Index data from Moody’s Analytics and msnbc.com.

Data released this week and included in the index, which measures changes in jobs, housing starts, industrial production and house prices, reflect changes in the economy through April.

The good news: The economy improved in April in every region of the country. Not a single state remains in recession. If someone in your family is out of work, that label may require a bit of clarification: While many have not recovered the jobs lost in the recession, no state is still in a sharp decline. In other words, one can be climbing out of a hole and still be in the hole. And looking more closely at the nation's 384 metro areas, nearly 90 percent have moved out of the recession into at least a modest recovery. The share of metro areas in recession in April was the lowest since the previous July.

The bad news: Only two states have entered a robust economic expansion. Among metro areas, only 6 percent are in expansion. The rest are stuck in a weak recovery, making small advances and not gaining much economic traction.

Four years earlier, at the same point in President George W. Bush's second term, 19 states had expanding economies. That number fell rapidly to only one by the time of the 2008 election, when Obama defeated Republican Sen. John McCain, and was at zero just a month after his inauguration. In the three-plus years of the Obama administration, only Alaska and North Dakota have accelerated into a full recovery, and no one expects either of those two Republican states to vote for Obama in 2012.

Check your state or metro area
The Adversity Index is calculated by Moody's Analytics based on a design developed with msnbc.com. It places each area in one of five economic categories: Expansion is the best, recession the worst, and in the middle are three transition categories.

You can see the economic status of each state or metro area on an interactive map from Moody's Analytics. Here's the link for free access through a Moody's partnership with msnbc.com.

A slow recovery
"Although April regional data appeared favorable for continued recovery, more recent national data have been soft," reported economist Brent Campbell at Moody's Analytics. "May payroll employment came in below expectations, and the forecast has been revised lower. As a result, risk levels could rise for metro area and state economies in coming months."

Here's a snapshot from the April data:

States

• 2 states are in a steady expansion: Alaska, North Dakota.
• 5 are at risk, meaning they're still in positive territory but slipping toward recession: Illinois, Maine, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Wisconsin.
• The remaining 44 (including D.C.) are in recovery, meaning they're still weak but rising toward expansion. The states improving into this category in April were Alabama, Connecticut, Missouri, Oregon and South Carolina, according to Moody's.
• 0 are in a moderating recession, meaning their economies are not contracting as severely as six months earlier.
• 0 are in an unrelenting recession. It's been that way since January. The last state out was Georgia.

Metro areas

• 21 metro areas are in a steady expansion: Amarillo, Texas; Anchorage, Alaska; Austin, Texas; Bismarck, N.D.; Burlington, Vt.; Cheyenne, Wyo.; Clarksville, Tenn.; Columbia, Mo.; Columbus, Ind.; Dubuque, Iowa; Fargo, N.D.; Grand Forks, N.D.; Holland, Mich.; Lafayette, Ind.; Lafayette, La.; Lubbock, Texas; McAllen, Texas; Midland, Texas; Odessa, Texas; Sioux City, Iowa; Waterloo, Iowa.
• 76 are at risk, meaning they're still in positive territory but slipping toward recession. That's the fewest since September 2010, Moody's reported. They are Abilene, Texas; Akron, Ohio; Alexandria, La.; Auburn, Ala.; Augusta, Ga.; Bangor, Maine; Battle Creek, Mich.; Beaumont, Texas; Bloomington, Ind.; Bloomington, Ill.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Brunswick, Ga.; Chicago, Ill.; Chico, Calif.; Cleveland, Ohio; College Station, Texas; Columbus, Ga.; Columbus, Ohio; Danville, Ill.; Decatur, Ala.; Eau Claire, Wisc.; Elizabethtown, Ky.; Eugene, Ore.; Farmington, N.M.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Florence, Ala.; Fond du Lac, Wisc.; Gainesville, Fla.; Great Falls, Mont.; Greeley, Colo.; Ithaca, N.Y.; Kennewick, Wash.; La Crosse, Wisc.; Lake Charles, La.; Lake County, Ill.; Lancaster, Pa.; Las Cruces, N.M.; Lebanon, Pa.; Lewiston, Maine; Los Angeles, Calif.; Madison, Wisc.; Mansfield, Ohio; Merced, Calif.; Michigan City, Ind.; Milwaukee, Wisc.; Monroe, Mich.; Morristown, Tenn.; Mount Vernon, Wash.; Muncie, Ind.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Naples, Fla.; North Port, Fla.; Olympia, Wash.; Owensboro, Ky.; Panama City, Fla.; Pensacola, Fla.; Pittsfield, Mass.; Port St. Lucie, Fla.; Portland, Maine; Providence, R.I.; Punta Gorda, Fla.; Richmond, Va.; Saginaw, Mich.; Sandusky, Ohio; Santa Rosa, Calif.; Sheboygan,  Wisc.; Springfield, Ill.; Sumter, S.C.; Virginia Beach, Va.; Waco, Texas; Warner Robins, Ga.; Wausau, Wisc.; Wenatchee, Wash.; Wichita Falls, Texas; Wilmington, N.C.; Yakima, Wash.
• The largest group, the 242 metro areas not named here, are in recovery, meaning they're still weak but rising toward expansion.
• 31 are in a moderating recession, meaning their economies are not contracting as severely as six months earlier: Albuquerque, N.M.; Anderson, Ind.; Anderson, S.C.; Anniston, Ala.; Bremerton, Wash.; Carson City, Nev.; Cleveland, Tenn.; Dalton, Ga.; El Centro, Calif.; Jackson, Tenn.; Lake Havasu, Ariz.; Lakeland, Fla.; Lewiston, Idaho; Longview, Wash.; Madera, Calif.; Missoula, Mont.; Modesto, Calif.; Ocala, Fla.; Palm Bay, Fla.; Palm Coast, Fla.; Pine Bluff, Ark.; Prescott, Ariz.; Racine, Wisc.; Rocky Mount, N.C.; Rome, Ga.; Salem, Ore.; Tallahassee, Fla.; Visalia, Calif.; Youngstown, Ohio; Yuba City, Calif.; Yuma, Ariz.
• 14 are in an unrelenting recession: Albany, Ga.; Champaign, Ill.; Dothan, Ala.; Elmira, N.Y.; Fort Smith, Ark.; Gulfport, Miss.; Huntsville, Ala.; Lawton, Okla.; Montgomery, Ala.; Norwich, Conn.; Pascagoula, Miss.; Pueblo, Colo.; Reno, N.V.; Spokane, Wash.

About the Adversity Index

The index is based on changes in employment, housing starts, industrial production and house prices. Each geographic area is judged to be in recession, at risk of recession, recovering from recession, or expanding. More about the index is at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29866676/ns/us_news-the_elkhart_project/t/how-adversity-index-detects-trends-local-economies/.

For an area to be deemed in recession, the six-month moving average of the index is lower than it was six months earlier. To be deemed in expansion, the opposite is true. The categories "at risk" and "recovery" are transition stages: At risk indicates that the economy is slipping from expansion toward recession, while recovery indicates movement from recession toward expansion.