When Zakary Littlefield bought a home on a small dead-end street overlooking Pittsburgh’s South Side, he didn’t suspect that he’d be forced to sell it just three and a half years later. 

He noticed the cracked pavement when he purchased the property. The road had cratered and the asphalt was, inch-by-inch, crumbling down the hillside. 

Unable to navigate the shrinking, craggy edge, standard city garbage trucks soon stopped picking up his trash, later replaced by smaller refuse vehicles. Drivers no longer delivered to his doorstep. In the back of his mind a thought persisted: “My road may be gone tomorrow.”

Littlefield’s home, recently renovated and nestled along Newton Street in the South Side Slopes, is one of 11 properties on that street that the City of Pittsburgh intends to buy and then retire in an effort to mitigate the risk of landslides. 

In Pittsburgh and throughout northern Appalachia, the combination of a soft, clay-laden geology and a precarious, tilted topography raise the likelihood of landslides. With more frequent and intense rainfall expected in a warming world, the probability of damage to property and people is likewise expected to swell.

The home buyouts, funded with $1.2 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], are one way that local governments can counter potential catastrophes. In other parts of South Pittsburgh, nearly $10 million in additional FEMA funds, plus millions more from the city, will be spent this winter to reinforce slopes deemed worth saving.

Maintaining Mount Washington

The slopes of Mount Washington have for years attracted concern from city officials.

In February of 2018, setting off what would become one of the wettest years in recent record, a landslide destroyed a home on Greenleaf Street in Duquesne Heights, spilling debris onto Route 51 and closing the thoroughfare. To the east, Mount Washington’s William Street has been closed and crumbling since 2018 and now resembles a narrow walking trail rather than the two-lane roadway it once was. At the bottom of Reese Street, the hillside is slowly sliding down a steep incline above a walking trail in Emerald View Park and Norfolk Southern’s railroad tracks. 

“There’s a lot of transportation infrastructure that has been impacted or could potentially be impacted by some of these landslides,” said Eric Setzler, the chief engineer at Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure. 

Some of the existing  landslides on Greenleaf, William and Reese streets have been temporarily stabilized and the supports have been holding, Setzler said. But by the end of the spring, these three failing slopes will be permanently buttressed by the FEMA investment. 

The point of the stabilization projects, Setzler said, is to secure the hillside to protect residents, their homes and transportation infrastructure that could be damaged should a catastrophic event occur, ideally, “ensuring stability for decades to come.”

The city, which is contributing $3 million to the $13 million total project cost, anticipates work will begin this winter after the construction contracts are settled. The work is expected to finish by April 2025, and Setzler said the most noticeable disruption will be the closure of Greenleaf Street for much of the duration.

More rain, more slides, more costs

“Ten years ago, this wasn’t really even an issue that was on the city’s radar,” said Jake Pawlak, deputy mayor of Pittsburgh. That’s not because city administrators weren’t attentive, he said, but “because we weren’t having nearly so many landslides, which have really emerged as a major infrastructure challenge and safety challenge in the past decade.”

Now the number of potentially unstable slopes far outweighs the city’s capacity to fix them.  

“It’s a real challenge,” Pawlak said. “It’s a risk to people. It’s a risk to our economy. It’s a risk for infrastructure.”

In 2018, when historic rains drenched Southwestern Pennsylvania, the city spent more than $12 million on cleanup from landslides. “We want to be more proactive,” said Setzler. 

He’s targeting imminent or ongoing slides in Elliott, Riverview Park, Morningside, Perry North and South and the Hill District. If heavy rains persist, more could follow. 

The city has begun to allocate more money to fixing and preventing landslides. The 2024 budget calls for $4.6 million for slope failure remediation and $8 million next year. After that, the budgeted numbers taper to $2.3 million and $2.5 million and $2.7 million from 2026 and 2028. The decrease in 2026 does not represent a de-emphasis on landslides, but rather a normal ebb and flow of project funding cycles, Pawlak said. He expects more funding to be allocated to the budget in the years to come.

Even as more money flows to landslide prevention, the investments that these projects require, Pawlak said, could not be met without state and federal partnerships. 

The Mount Washington-area projects and partnership with FEMA, which pays 75% of the bill, he said, is a “great first step in what we hope to be an ongoing relationship in addressing these issues.”

Building buyout

When Littlefield met with city officials about his home on Newton Street, they told him the risk was higher than they’d like for people to be living there, and the cost of repair too high to justify.

“The outcome of that meeting was effectively that it would be cheaper to buy the houses there from residents that were on the road than to fix the road,” he said. 

The city offered fair value, Littlefield said, about the same amount that he paid for it, and he took the offer. “It would be impossible for me to sell the house to anyone else, so I kind of felt like it was the only reasonable option,” he explained. 

The city applied for another grant from FEMA to acquire the houses, through a program designed to eliminate high-risk properties, but the agency hasn’t yet confirmed the funds. With options limited for protecting private property, the buyouts allow city government to mitigate private risk through acquisitions and demolitions. 

“It’s an opportunity for people whose homes are at risk or severely damaged to start fresh and also for the government to reduce the risk by eliminating that property,” said MaryAnn Tierney, the regional administrator for FEMA.

When the federal funding was announced in December, Tierney toured the city’s at-risk hillsides.

“As we think about climate change and we think about areas that are at risk for climate change, it’s not just coastal communities,” Tierney said. “It is communities like Pittsburgh, where you see the effects of concentrated rain on these very significant and steep slopes.” 

She applauded Pittsburgh for its efforts, but recognized the remaining challenges.

“The city is doing all of the right things,” Tierney said. “They’ve prioritized this. They’re seeking grant dollars. They’re putting their own money behind it. They’ve had a massive engineering effort to think about this. … They should be commended for recognizing and trying to take proactive steps to address it.”

Photographs by Quinn Glabicki.

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Instagram and X @quinnglabicki.

This story was fact-checked by Sarah Liez.

The post Slip sliding away: Federal funds buy out Pittsburgh homes under threat from landslides appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

In Beechview’s blossoming Latino community, the T is an invaluable asset. Its steel tracks trace Broadway Avenue, weaving between Latin American restaurants, community groups and grocers.

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Extending from the stadiums of the North Shore to the shopping centers of South Hills Village, the segment of Pittsburgh’s light rail system called the Red Line connects the southern hilltop neighborhood to Downtown and the suburbs.

For people without access to a car or the papers necessary for a driver’s license, the Red Line provides vital and affordable transportation to work, school and play.

It’s a central reason why many immigrants choose to settle in sloping Beechview, the city’s only neighborhood with rail-based transit embedded in its central artery. 

Nearly 40% of the riders who rely on the Red Line are Spanish speakers, according to a 2022 survey conducted by Casa San José, a community organization in Beechview.

The integral role that the T plays for Latino residents also means that the community is vulnerable when it goes out of service or proves unreliable. And while the T may become more Spanish-speaker-friendly next year, its schedule may also be reduced.

All but one of the employees at Chicken Latino take the T to work.

“Most Hispanic families here don’t have a car,” said Shelbin Santos, owner of the Peruvian restaurant on Broadway Avenue. “A lot of people don’t have the luxury of papers and documentation.”

“The T line connects you to everything.”

When it comes to business, the Red Line brings in customers — and cash. 

When there are games or concerts Downtown, “The trains are full,” explained Santos. “And you know they’re stopping here for food first.”

Riders take the Red Line south toward Beechview after the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Nov. 12. Business owners along Broadway Avenue report significant business dips when the T is out of service.

But when the Red Line is out of service, many of Santos’ employees are forced to walk to work. Sometimes they arrive late. 

Apolonio Gomez takes the Red Line to work at a second job in Dormont after finishing his shifts at Chicken Latino. But when the T is out of service for repairs or outages, he said, he has to walk for more than 40 minutes.

The Red Line can be especially unreliable at night, said Gomez, when he is on his way home from work. “It needs better service.” 

And when the T is down, business goes down. 

In early 2022, when a bridge supporting the train line required repairs, the Red Line was out of service for more than three and a half months, replaced with a shuttle for portions of its route. 

Santos estimated that her restaurant lost $36,000 during that period. “It was a nightmare when the T was closed,” she recounted.

A few blocks down Broadway another restaurant, Comedor Betty, placed their losses at $10,000. Across Broadway, restaurant Alquisiras Paleteria estimated they missed out on $20,000 in expected revenue, closing early on some days due to a shrinking clientele before the Red Line resumed service in May, according to a survey conducted by Casa San José. 

“Our entire transit system — not just the Red Line — has been experiencing reliability issues since the COVID pandemic,” wrote James Ritchie, chief communications officer for PRT, in an email to PublicSource, pointing to challenges with hiring and training enough employees. “This has compromised our ability to fulfill the published schedules at times.” 

According to Ritchie, the Red Line offers a “​​high level of service” and runs every 15 minutes during peak hours and every “20(ish) minutes” during off-peak hours. “Which is better than most of our routes,” he wrote. It does not run between 1:30 a.m. and 4 a.m.

In February, the Red Line will roll down Broadway less frequently. PRT is planning to reduce the  schedule because they don’t have enough operators. “We certainly don’t want to be doing this,” said Phillip St Pierre, head of scheduling for PRT. “But we need to have people to work.”

The change, which St. Pierre said is unlikely to affect rush-hour commuters and will mostly take place during off-peak hours, could add five minutes to wait times. But it will also make the T more reliable, St. Pierre said: “So it will show up when we say it will.”

For Beechview’s Spanish-speaking riders, though, concerns of reliability are compounded by concerns about language accessibility.

When Ricardo Villarreal moved to Pittsburgh from Panama three years ago, he used the T to go everywhere — and he still does. 

He and his partner, Lorena Peña, ride the T to work five days a week, commuting from their home near South Hills Junction to work at a pizza restaurant in Mt. Lebanon. 

“Every day you go into a Red Line trolley, you’re going to find four out of ten Latinos,” said Villarreal as he and Peña rode south for dinner in Dormont. He serves on the board of Pittsburghers for Public Transit [PPT], a group advocating for transit accessibility. 

“We are advocating for Latinos because we are Latinos, but the train is used by all kinds of people,” said Peña, also a member of PPT. She said that if the T was more reliable, more people would use it. 

But for people in the community who don’t speak English, the transit system can be difficult to navigate. 

“It’s very complicated for people to understand if you don’t speak the language,” said Villarreal.

For recent immigrants in particular, buying a ticket or loading a ConnectCard and finding the right train can be a difficult process to navigate without Spanish-language instruction at the stop, said Peña, who added that language barriers become exacerbated when trains are late or services suspended.

Along with Casa San José, Villarreal and Peña are advocating for greater language access for Spanish-speaking T riders. 

They’ve asked PRT to add Spanish-language loudspeaker announcements and signs at stops along the Red Line, and they’re hoping to create an ambassador program that would place bilingual guides at T stops to help Spanish speakers to find their way.

They may soon get their wish.

In December, PRT will begin rolling out Spanish-language signage and audio announcements at rail stations along the Red Line, Downtown and at some stops along the Blue Line that serve Brookline, according to Ritchie, who expects Spanish-language messaging will expand to the interiors of T cars, the PRT website and social media in 2024.

PRT also recently launched a Spanish-language option on its customer service line with an option to tap a live interpreter into the call. 

But the “big missing component,” according to Ritchie, is getting information about service disruptions to riders, which he acknowledged impacts Spanish speakers who rely on the Red Line. 

To that end, PRT is developing a system through which riders can sign up for alerts for when services are down on the transit lines they use, which can be delivered by text — in Spanish or other languages — in hopes of serving people who don’t have internet access or a smartphone. That service does not yet have a launch date.

The people most affected by language access and reliability are low-income immigrants, said Laura Perkins, who works with Latino residents through Casa San José. Many, she said, are “folks that are fleeing poverty and violence that came across the border in a legal way that just don’t have the money to access legal status.”

“When the quality of service goes down, who does it affect the most?” said Perkins. “It has a direct correlation with privilege.”

Perkins often records videos in Spanish to let people in the community know when the Red Line is out of service, or to explain the process of loading a ConnectCard. She’s even offered to record announcements for PRT herself that could be played at T stops along the Red Line in Spanish. 

The T, Perkins said, “is the only way to get around if you don’t have a car and you can’t afford Uber, which is most people.” 

“It’s completely essential. … It is the lifeline of Beechview.”

Photographs by Quinn Glabicki.

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on instagram and X @quinnglabicki. 

This story was fact-checked by Ladimir Garcia.

Translation by Zulma Michaca, a bilingual professional living in Riverside County, Calif., with family ties in Pittsburgh. She can be reached at z.michaca123@gmail.com.

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En la comunidad floreciente Latina de Beechview, el T es un recurso de valor indispensable. Sus carriles de acero trazan la Avenida Broadway, tejidos entre restaurantes, grupos comunitarios y tiendas Latinoamericanas.

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Extendiéndose de los estadios del North Shore a los centros comerciales de South Hills Village, el segmento del sistema del tren ligero de Pittsburgh conocido como la Línea Roja conecta el sur de la cima del vecindario al centro y los suburbios.

Para personas sin acceso a un carro o sin los papeles necesarios para una licencia de conducir, la Línea Roja provee transportación vital y económica al trabajo, la escuela, y a jugar.

Es una razón central de porque muchos inmigrantes eligen establecerse en el inclinado Beechview, el único vecindario en la ciudad con tránsito sobre riel integrado en su arteria central. 

Casi 40% de los pasajeros que dependen de la Línea Roja hablan español, de acuerdo con una encuesta del 2022 conducida por Casa San José, una organización comunitaria en Beechview.

La función integral de la T para los residentes Latinos también significa que la comunidad es vulnerable cuando está fuera de servicio o resulta poco fiable. Y mientras que quizás para el año que viene el T se convierta más amigable  para los hispanohablantes, su horario podría ser reducido.

Todos menos uno de los empleados de Chicken Latino toman el T al trabajo.

“Muchas familias hispanas aquí no tienen carro,” dijo Shelbin Santos, dueña del restaurante peruano en la Avenida Broadway. “Muchas personas no tienen el lujo de papeles y documentación.”

“La línea T te conecta con todo.”

Cuando se trata de negocios, la Línea Roja atrae clientes – y dinero en efectivo.

Cuando hay partidos o conciertos en el centro, “Los trenes están llenos,” explicó Santos. “Y sabes que primero van a parar aquí para comer.”

Pasajeros toman la Línea Roja sur hacia Beechview después de que los Steelers de Pittsburgh le ganaron a los Green Bay Packers el domingo, 12 de noviembre. Los dueños de negocios en la Avenida Broadway reportan bajas en negocios cuando el T está fuera de servicio.

Pero cuando la Línea Roja está fuera de servicio, muchos empleados de Santos son forzados a caminar al trabajo. A veces llegan tarde.

Apolonio Gomez toma la Línea Roja para trabajar en un segundo trabajo en Dormont después de terminar sus turnos en Chicken Latino. Pero cuando el T está fuera de servicio por reparaciones o apagones, él dijo que tiene que caminar más de 40 minutos.

La Línea Roja puede ser poco fiable especialmente de noche, dijo Gomez, cuando él está de camino a su casa del trabajo. “Necesita mejor servicio.”

Y cuando el T está fuera de servicio, el negocio baja.

A principios del 2022, cuando se requerían reparaciones para un puente que apoya la línea del tren, la Línea Roja estuvo fuera de servicio por más de tres meses y medio, reemplazado con un servicio de un autobús lanzadera por partes de su ruta.

Santos estimó que su restaurante perdió $36,000 durante ese periodo. “Fue una pesadilla cuando el T estuvo cerrado,” ella platicó.A unas cuadras bajando Broadway otro restaurante, Comedor Betty, estimó una pérdida de $10,000. Atravesando Broadway, el restaurante Alquisiras Paleteria estimó que perdieron $20,000 en ingresos esperados, cerrando temprano en algunos días debido a una reducción de clientela antes de que la Línea Roja resumiera el servicio en mayo, de acuerdo con una encuesta conducida por Casa San José.

“Nuestro sistema de tránsito entero — no solo la Línea Roja — ha pasado por problemas de fiabilidad desde la pandemia de COVID,” escribió James Ritchie, el oficial principal de comunicaciones para el Tránsito Regional de Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Regional Transit o PRT), en un correo electrónico a FuentePública (PublicSource), señalando desafíos al contratar y entrenar suficientes empleados. “Esto a veces ha afectado nuestra habilidad de cumplir con los horarios publicados.”

De acuerdo con Ritchie, la Línea Roja ofrece un “nivel alto de servicio” y pasa cada 15 minutos durante horas pico y cada “casi 20 minutos” durante horas de baja demanda. “Que es mejor que la mayoría de nuestras rutas,” él escribió. No recorre entre 1:30 am y 4:00 am.    

En febrero, la Línea Roja va a atravesar Broadway con menos frecuencia. PRT está planeando reducir el horario porque no tienen suficientes operadores. “Por supuesto que no queremos estar haciendo esto,” dijo Phillip St. Pierre, el jefe de horarios para PRT. “Pero necesitamos tener personas para trabajar.”

El cambio, que St. Pierre dice que es improbable que afecte a pasajeros viajando en horas de mayor tránsito y mayormente se realizará durante horas de baja demanda, puede agregar 5 minutos de espera. Pero también hará el T más fiable, dijo St. Pierre: “Así que aparecerá cuando digamos que lo hará.”

Pero, para pasajeros de Beechview que hablan español, la preocupación de fiabilidad se combinan con preocupaciones de acceso lingüístico.

Cuando Ricardo Villarreal se mudó a Pittsburgh de Panamá hace tres años, él usaba el T para ir a todos lados — y todavía lo hace.

Él y su pareja, Lorena Peña, toman el T al trabajo cinco días a la semana, viajando a diario desde su casa cerca de la Unión de South Hills (South Hills Junction) para trabajar en un restaurante de pizza en Mt. Lebanon.    

“Todos los días que vas dentro de un trolley de la Línea Roja, vas a encontrar cuatro de diez Latinos,” dijo Villarreal cuando él y Peña viajaban al sur para cenar en Dormont. Él es funcionario del consejo de Pittsburghers para Transito Publico (Pittsburghers for Public Transit [PPT]), un grupo defendiendo la accesibilidad al tránsito.

“Estamos abogando por Latinos porque somos Latinos, pero todo tipo de personas usan el tren,” dijo Peña, también miembro de PPT. Ella dijo que si el T fuera más fiable, más gente lo usaría.  

Pero para las personas en la comunidad que no hablan inglés, el sistema de tránsito puede ser difícil de navegar.

“Es muy complicado para las personas entiendan si no hablan el idioma,” dijo Villarreal.

Para inmigrantes recientes en particular, comprar un boleto o cargar la ConnectCard y encontrar el tren correcto puede ser un proceso difícil de navegar sin instrucción en el lenguaje español en la parada, dijo Peña, quien agregó que las barreras al idioma se pueden exacerbar cuando los trenes se tardan o cuando se suspende el servicio.

Junto con Casa San José, Villarreal y Peña abogan por más acceso lingüístico para pasajeros del T que hablan español. 

Le han pedido al PRT que agregue anuncios de altavoz y letreros en las paradas de la Línea Roja en español, y esperan crear un programa de embajadores que pondría guías bilingües en las paradas del T para ayudar a los hispanohablantes a encontrar su camino.

Quizás pronto consigan su deseo.

En diciembre, el PRT empezará a implementar letreros y anuncios de altavoz en español en las estaciones de tren por la Línea Roja, en el centro y en algunas paradas por la Línea Azul que atienden a Brookline, de acuerdo con Ritchie, quien espera que el mensaje en español se expanda al interior de los trenes T, el sitio web PRT y las redes sociales en 2024.   

Recientemente, el PRT también inauguró una opción en español para su línea de servicio al cliente con una opción para agregar a un intérprete en vivo a la llamada.

Pero el “gran componente que falta,” de acuerdo con Ritchie, es pasar información de interrupción al servicio a los pasajeros, que él reconoce que impacta a los hispanohablantes que dependen en la Línea Roja.

Para ese fin, el PRT está desarrollando un sistema al cual los pasajeros se pueden inscribir para recibir alertas cuando no hay servicio en las líneas de tránsito que usan, que se podrían enviar por texto – en español o en otros lenguajes – con la esperanza de atender a las personas que no tienen acceso al internet o a un teléfono inteligente.

Ese servicio todavía no tiene una fecha de inicio.

Las personas más afectadas por el acceso lingüístico y fiabilidad son inmigrantes de bajos recursos, dijo Laura Perkins, quien trabaja con residentes Latinos a través de Casa San José. Muchos, ella dijo, son “personas que huyen de la pobreza y la violencia que cruzaron la frontera de manera legal que no tienen el dinero para el acceso a estatus legal.”

“Cuándo la calidad del servicio baja, ¿quién se ve más afectado?” dijo Perkins, “Tiene una correlación directa con el privilegio.”

Perkins a menudo graba videos en español para informar a personas de la comunidad cuando la Línea Roja está fuera de servicio, o para explicar el proceso de cargar la ConnectCard. Incluso se ofreció a grabar anuncios ella misma para PRT en español que podrían reproducirse en las paradas del T por la Línea Roja.

El T, dijo Perkins, “es la única manera de transporte si no tienes carro y si no puedes pagar por Uber, que es la mayoría de las personas.”

“Es completamente esencial… Es la línea vital para Beechview.”

Fotografías de Quinn Glabicki.

Quinn Glabicki es un reportero del ambiente y clima en FuentePública (PublicSource) y es miembro de corps para Report for America. Puede ser contactado en quinn@publicsource.org y por instagram y X @quinnglabicki. 

Los hechos de esta historia fueron revisados por Ladimir Garcia. 

Traducción de Zulma Michaca, profesional bilingüe experta viviendo en el Condado de Riverside, Calif., con familia en Pittsburgh. Para contactarla: z.michaca123@gmail.com.

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For decades, the people of Yukon, a town of around 500 in Westmoreland County, have lived beneath a growing mountain of industrial waste.

Since 1964, when a landfill first began to take in the sludgy, heavy-metal-laden byproducts of a then-booming steel industry, locals have complained of health problems and suspected the facility of operating dangerously.

A March report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] presents new evidence that landfill operator MAX Environmental failed to comply with federal clean water and hazardous waste laws, reinforcing long-held suspicions among the landfill’s neighbors. 

“These are things that the community has been saying for a long time,” said Stacey Magda, an organizer with Mountain Watershed Association, who pointed to a generalized failure to contain hazardous waste and unpermitted liquid storage tanks found on-site as “big red flags.”

“And now we actually have documentation,” she said.

In March, EPA investigators spent five days at the facility and found that MAX failed to properly treat and store hazardous waste. An EPA lab found one sample with more than 1,300 times the safe disposal limit of cancer-causing cadmium in a landfill not permitted for untreated hazardous waste disposal. Investigators found leaks, spills and dilapidated hazardous waste storage areas, and reported that MAX failed to properly inspect its leak detection system and hazardous waste containment areas.

The investigation also found that the company did not report some monitoring data to regulators as its permit requires, and that it did not use equipment intended to remove hazardous heavy metals from wastewater discharged into Sewickley Creek, a main tributary to the Youghiogheny River that flows into the Monongahela at McKeesport.

Mountain Watershed Association, a conservation and watchdog group that advocates for the safety of residents in Yukon and for the protection of the greater watershed, first obtained the EPA report in October through a public records review.

“This is the first time that we’ve really seen this really black-and-white proof of what’s really happening at MAX Environmental,” Magda said.

The EPA’s findings come as MAX seeks to add a seventh landfill permit to its operations in Yukon, and as the company petitions state regulators to reclassify the sludge it generates from waste treatment as nonhazardous. 

MAX Environmental General Manager Carl Spadaro said in an email response to PublicSource’s questions that the company has since revised waste sampling procedures and “implemented a modified procedure” for testing certain treated hazardous waste to make sure it meets standards. The company has also begun a “structural assessment” of the containment building floor, and stormwater management training. MAX recently hired an engineering consultant to evaluate possible improvements of a containment area, and a contractor to repair the exterior walls of containment buildings, Spadaro wrote.

‘Actively leaking’ hazardous waste

In March, investigators from the EPA’s National Enforcement Investigations Center [NEIC] spent five days at MAX’s facility in Yukon, which is permitted to treat and dispose of hazardous waste. MAX must treat hazardous waste to acceptable levels before burying it in their landfill, according to permits. 

EPA testing, however, found that samples of the waste treated and buried by MAX contained up to 21 times the standard for lead, and more than 1,300 times the standard for cadmium, which is considered a cancer-causing agent by the Centers for Disease Control. 

According to the report, MAX’s on-site laboratory tested and approved waste for disposal which remained hazardous after treatment. The report notes MAX’s hazardous waste treatment process is “ineffective” at meeting treatment standards. 

MAX’s Spadaro wrote that the company disagrees with the observation that MAX does not properly treat hazardous waste. A Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] accredited laboratory “analyzed the waste at issue and demonstrated that we meet the appropriate treatment standards,” he wrote. He added: “Any hazardous waste leaks or spills that NEIC might have observed were onto containment areas, which is what they were designed and constructed for.” 

EPA regulations stipulate that hazardous waste storage areas must be “completely enclosed,” but when investigators arrived at MAX’s Yukon facility they observed “significant damage and deterioration” to the walls of its hazardous waste storage buildings and “large holes” and damaged or missing exterior walls which exposed hazardous waste to the elements. Investigators observed rain falling directly on hazardous waste through holes in the roof of a storage building, and a building that stored hazardous waste that was missing a wall entirely on its eastern side. 

Investigators observed hazardous waste in open containers, “actively leaking” from a storage container and on the ground outside treatment pits. Vehicles that came into contact with waste tracked it across the facility, the EPA found.

Spadaro wrote that the landfill’s neighbors “should have no concerns about health and safety related to our operations because the wastes are kept on site in contained areas.” He added that facility employees have “periodic medical examinations to make sure that they are not exposed to elevated levels of hazardous materials.”

Defending the sludge

In a 2019 petition to the DEP, MAX wrote that its “sludge has not exhibited any hazardous characteristic, created any environmental impact, or been managed in a manner inconsistent with any environmental regulations,” with waste concentrations “well below” standards. It asked that the runoff from its landfill no longer be considered hazardous waste. The petition to delist the waste is pending regulatory approval.

In March, EPA investigators found that MAX’s equipment used to remove heavy metals from wastewater “is not properly operated and maintained and was out of service.” They wrote: “The facility is not getting complete treatment,” possibly resulting in excess metals in the wastewater. EPA records show that MAX violated its discharge permits in five straight quarters between January of 2022 and March of this year.

Stacey Magda (left), an organizer with Mountain Watershed Association, and Yukon resident Debbie Franzetta (right), who moved to Yukon with her husband in 1987, look out across Sewickley Creek near the outfall where MAX discharges on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023. “Why now?” Franzetta asked of the EPA inspection. “They should have been here 40 years ago.” (Photos by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource)

Roughly a week later, John Stolz, director of the Center for Environmental Research and Education at Duquesne University, sampled discharge from the facility’s outfall into Sewickley Creek. According to his preliminary testing “the discharge was incredibly high,” he said. “Everything was elevated.” 

“They’re saying they discharge 23 micrograms per liter on average with a maximum of 79 micrograms per liter on a maximum for arsenic,” said Stolz. “And I’m telling you, I’ve measured over 600 micrograms per liter in their discharge.” 

The amount of arsenic Stolz found at MAX’s outfall is nearly eight times higher than the maximum amount the company reported to regulators. For lead, Stolz’s testing showed levels 5.7 times higher than what MAX reported. For copper, his results came in more than 24 times the company’s reported levels.

“People are fishing in that stream,” Stolz said. The outfall is roughly 200 yards upstream from a marked roadside fishing location. “People are recreating in that stream.” He added that more testing is needed upstream and downstream to understand the impact on the watershed. 

“This shouldn’t be for me to do.” Stolz said. “This should be for the DEP to do.”

DEP spokesperson Lauren Camarda said that agency staff attended the March investigation with the EPA and is aware of the contents of the report. The agency is conducting a separate investigation into the facility, and does not comment on ongoing investigations, Camarda said.

What does the future hold?

Last year, MAX applied for a permit to build a seventh landfill in Yukon which would dispose of untreated hazardous waste. At a DEP hearing at the local fire hall last December, residents shared a range of illnesses that they blame on MAX and urged the agency to deny the expansion. 

Misty Springer, who lives below the landfill, told the DEP representatives that she’s experienced six miscarriages. “Not fun going through one, but six of them, it’s fucking hell,” she said. 

“How many people on your block have cancer?” she asked officials. “How many people in your town? Because I bet your town is bigger than mine, and I bet you my town has more people with cancer than yours.”

In February, after residents opposed the expansion and the DEP notified the company of deficiencies in its application, MAX pulled its submission, but vowed to refile. 

Now, in light of the current EPA investigation, MAX’s Spadaro said the company has suspended plans to pursue the permit “until we resolve all outstanding compliance concerns from EPA and DEP.”

“This is a crux moment,” Magda said. “Landfill six is very close to capacity. We now know that there is untreated hazardous waste in there. We don’t know where. We don’t know how deep.”

“The untreated hazardous waste is never going to leave Yukon.”

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Instagram @quinnglabicki.

This story was fact-checked by Abigail Nemec-Merwede.

The post EPA investigation shows failures at Westmoreland hazardous waste treatment facility amid resident fears appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Update (11/9/23): Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor announced that his office will begin an audit of the county’s Clean Air Fund.

“Our aim with this audit is to ensure that uses of the Clean Air Fund are in compliance with the law and these funds are available for projects designed to improve air quality and public health,” O’Connor said in a press release. “We must ensure there is transparency and accountability for how our County distributes these funds.”

O’Connor’s office said the audit “will examine whether uses of the fund have complied with the purposes for which it was established, the process by which community organizations apply for and are awarded grants from the fund, the extent to which ACHD has obtained input from affected communities regarding use of the Fund’s resources,” among other inquiries.

Allegheny County Board of Health sends bid to tap Clean Air Fund to public comment phase

Update (3/22/23): The Allegheny County Board of Health voted to advance the proposal to tap the Clean Air Fund for more support for the Air Quality Program to an extended public comment phase. Public comment will be followed by another consideration by the Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee.

During the meeting, numerous environmental advocacy organizations, including the Breathe Project, the Group Against Smog and Pollution [GASP], Valley Clean Air Now, Clean Air Council and PennEnvironment spoke in opposition to the proposal. 

Reported 3/20/23: The Allegheny County Health Department’s Air Quality Program is seeking unprecedented access to the Clean Air Fund, a coffer of nearly $10 million earmarked largely for community-based projects that address Allegheny County’s chronic air quality issues.

During a special meeting of the Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee on March 13, County Manager Jennifer Liptak painted an urgent portrait of a department experiencing fiscal turbulence.

“If we continue down this road, we’re going to continue to have a deficit until we figure out how to make this program more efficient,” she said.

The meeting was the ninth in a lengthy and contentious debate over a proposal to increase the portion of the fund that the Air Quality Program may use for its operating expenses. The program, which oversees monitoring and enforcement of air pollution regulations, has been allowed to use up to 5% of the Clean Air Fund balance to pay for its operations. Now the department seeks a five-fold bump — up to 25% — of monies that could otherwise be used to fund community projects.

Over the past several months, the committee expressed doubts about the proposal, with many members questioning whether the move is an appropriate use of funds, and whether it is financially justified. 

“The substantial change should not be taken lightly,” said Mark Jeffrey, U.S. Steel’s representative on the committee, on March 13. “At the end of the day, we want the money to go back to communities. We want to improve air quality in Allegheny County. And this is going to take a dent out of it one way or the other.”

A motion to send the proposal to the Board of Health passed the committee by an 8-4 vote. The board on Wednesday will decide whether to send the proposal to the next stage: public comment. The board shot down a previous iteration of the proposal in January, which was brought to a vote without the committee’s blessing. 

The latest push adds to the debate over who should have access to the fund and for what purposes. The process also raises questions of how to appropriately support a county air program with dwindling revenue that is struggling to stay in the black.

After PublicSource inquiries, County Controller Corey O’Connor pledged to audit the Clean Air Fund this year, saying that had not been previously done.

Changing the Clean Air Fund? 

The Clean Air Fund contains nearly $10 million in fines and penalties paid by polluters in Allegheny County, and it continues to receive money each year as violations persist. 

Per county law, the fund is intended “solely to support activities related to the improvement of air quality within Allegheny County and to support activities which will increase or improve knowledge concerning air pollution, its causes, its effects, and the control thereof.” As is, the Air Quality Program may draw up to 5% of the fund balance each year for operating costs.

The Air Quality Program is made up of about 45 engineers, analysts and inspectors, and is responsible for monitoring air pollution in Allegheny County, permitting for major polluters and enforcing air quality regulations.

Under the new proposal, the Air Quality Program’s slice of pollution-penalty pie would grow five times to 25% of the Clean Air Fund’s balance, with an annual cap of $1.25 million and a clause that says the stopgap measure would sunset after four years. After that, the Air Quality Program would again be limited to drawing 5% of the Clean Air Fund. 

The Air Quality Program has drawn the full 5% from the fund to cover operating expenses per the regulation each year since at least 2016 — typically around $500,000 to $600,000.

Since 2019, the program received nearly $2.1 million from the Clean Air Fund for operating expenses, 44% of the total Clean Air Fund expenditures, according to data from the county controller’s office. 

The Health Department also used $70,065 in Clean Air Fund dollars to cover temporary staffing expenses, and $121,290 for air quality permitting and enforcement software, according to contracts. In 2017, $500,000 was transferred from the Clean Air Fund to pay for renovations for a Health Department building in Lawrenceville. 

A precarious Air Quality Program

Financials show 2023 as an inflection point: The Air Quality Program faces a projected $760,000 deficit this year. Liptak, along with acting Health Department Director Patrick Dowd and Deputy of Environmental Health Geoff Rabinowitz, said the proposal to draw more from the Clean Air Fund is a way to cover the difference, and would be a stopgap measure as the program seeks to hire a full staff and figure out how to right the ship.

“The program has to be functional,” Rabinowitz told the Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee at a meeting in January. “This is not a situation that is tenable in perpetuity.

“There is a sense of urgency here, and I hope you hear that in my voice.”

From the county’s perspective, the Clean Air Fund is a viable and available avenue to keep the Air Quality Program functional without dipping into the county’s general fund, which was used to cover a $481,000 deficit in 2022. “That’s not good,” said Liptak.

“The general fund is the property tax dollars for the citizens of Allegheny County,” she said. “That’s the last resort.”

The Air Quality Program does not usually rely on the county general fund to finance its staff like many other departments do. Instead, the program has historically relied on grant funding and a variety of fees collected from industrial emitters.

The closure of large industrial facilities like the Shenango Coke Works on Neville Island in 2016 and the Cheswick Generating Station in 2022 were by all accounts boosts to the county’s air quality, but the facilities were also longtime sources of revenue for the Air Quality Program. 

EPA grants have also been unreliable, said Rabinowitz. In addition, U.S. Steel is currently appealing $6.4 million in penalties, and those funds are held in an escrow account until litigation is resolved. A portion of those funds, if secured, would help to replenish the Clean Air Fund, Liptak said.

Diverting money meant for communities?

The Clean Air Fund is “meant to be utilized predominantly for supporting educational programs or direct projects that reduce air quality emission or improve air quality in fenceline environmental justice communities,” said Steve Hvozdovich, a committee member and state campaigns director for Clean Water Action. “That's not how that's going to be utilized over the course of these next four years of this process if this is adopted.”

Under the new proposal, the Clean Air Fund could be drained by the time the new regulation phases out, Hvozdovich said. 

“If you do the math,” he said, based on the county manager’s projection, “you're going to drain the Clean Air Fund by the end of 2026 by 75%. I'd be fine with that if the bulk of that was going to the community. But it's not. It's being split essentially almost evenly between the operating expenses of the Air Quality Program and the public. And I just don't think that's the right use of those funds.”

O’Connor, the county’s independent fiscal watchdog, questioned whether a regulation change that spans four years is the right path, particularly given the opportunity for a new county executive to have a hand in deciding the funding future of the program, once elected. 

O’Connor suggested that the Health Department consider increasing fines for polluters to bolster the budget, or resort to the county general fund to cover personnel.

“If this is a one-time hit just to get through for a couple of months, that's a different conversation than a four-year plan,” he said. “If you look at a four-year long-term plan, the fund is going to be dwindling. The money is supposed to go towards communities that want to use this fund for environmental purposes."

Questions of accessibility and proper use of funds

Thaddeus Popovich, who co-founded Allegheny County Clean Air Now [ACCAN] in 2014, addressed the committee, ACHD leadership and the county manager last week. 

“Since 2020, ACCAN has been asking the department to conduct a comprehensive air toxics and odor study in the Neville Island area, like the one they did in the Mon Valley,” he said. “The study would provide important information that could help the Health Department to better regulate industries in this airshed, which could better protect the health of residents in our communities.”

Miles away in Clairton, Valley Clean Air Now [VCAN] has for years attempted to access the fund to purchase home air filters for residents, with no success.

“There was no way to apply to the fund,” said Myron Arnowitt, who led efforts to secure air filter funding for VCAN. “And there still isn’t.”

The department is supposed to issue requests for proposals [RFPs] for Clean Air Fund funding, but community groups like VCAN and ACCAN say those are few and far between, with no opportunities to access funding in the interim. 

The county manager projected that $2 million in Clean Air Fund money will be spent on projects this year — more than what was spent on projects from the fund across the last three years combined — followed by $1 million for each year through 2027. 

But the Health Department hasn’t issued an RFP “in ages,” Hvozdovich said. 

The Health Department did not respond by deadline to PublicSource’s request for information on the timing of any recent RFPs for Clean Air Fund allocations. The department has yet to announce criteria for the $2 million the manager projected would soon be up for grabs.

“Why are we not spending the money every year?” O’Connor questioned. The fund has carried a balance roughly between $10 million and $12 million since 2016. “These are capital expenditures that we can be spending with community groups.” 

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Twitter and Instagram @quinnglabicki.

This story was fact-checked by Dakota Castro-Jarrett.

The post Updated: Audit of Allegheny County Clean Air Fund beginning appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Two hydrogen hubs partially located in Pennsylvania will receive slices of $7 billion in federal funding, the Biden Administration announced Friday. 

The proposed Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub [ARCH2] is based primarily in West Virginia but will span parts of Western Pennsylvania. In Eastern Pennsylvania, the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub, or MACH2, will also receive funding. The two projects are among seven nationally to be designated for funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. 

A separate proposal centered on the Pittsburgh region, which had garnered support from local and state officials including Gov. Josh Shapiro, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and local labor and industry leaders, was not selected for funding by the White House, stirring disappointment among proponents.

The ARCH2 hydrogen hub, backed by the largest natural gas producer in the United States, Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp., will use fracked natural gas to produce hydrogen. The resulting carbon emissions from that process are to be captured and injected deep underground. The hub will center in West Virginia, but will also span parts of eastern Kentucky, Ohio and Southwestern Pennsylvania. The project is set to receive up to $925 million in federal funding.

Across the state, the MACH2 hydrogen hub will extend over parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware and southern New Jersey, and will use renewable and nuclear electricity to produce the element. The project is set to receive up to $750 million from the federal government.

The Biden Administration expects the seven hubs to catalyze an additional $43 billion in private investment, bringing the total to nearly $50 billion for “one of the largest investments in clean manufacturing ever.”

What is a hydrogen hub?

Hydrogen, nature’s simplest element, can be transported, stored and ultimately combusted with zero carbon footprint. But it takes energy to separate the hydrogen from other molecules.

Currently, 96% of global hydrogen production is powered by fossil fuels and is known as gray hydrogen. Hydrogen separated from water using electricity from renewable sources is known as green hydrogen. Blue hydrogen would be made with natural gas, and the resulting carbon emissions would be captured and buried deep underground through a process known as carbon capture and sequestration. 

Hydrogen is a key component of the Biden administration’s goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, but it is restricted to uses that are difficult to electrify, such as steel and cement production, heavy-duty transportation and shipping.

Pittsburgh left out?

Locally, business and labor organizations expressed disappointment with the decision to fund the West Virginia-based ARCH2 proposal over another hub that would have been based in the Pittsburgh Region, the Decarbonization Network of Appalachia [DNA], which was also among 33 finalists. 

“While we are disappointed that the [Southwestern Pennsylvania]-based DNA project was not chosen, we’re pleased that the eastern side of the state has the potential to benefit from the jobs and investment associated with the MACH2 project,” said Jeff Nobers, executive director of Pittsburgh Works Together, a labor and industry organization, in a statement Friday morning. 

“We will have a role in the WV-based ARCH2 project, and some jobs will be created here and in other areas of the state, but certainly not at the level we had hoped. It is critical that we work together to attract as many jobs and as much investment as possible from the ARCH2 project” into Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Joe Rockey, the Republican nominee for Allegheny County executive, called the Department of Energy decision “an example of what happens when local leaders don’t unite behind important projects.” In a statement, he accused Democratic nominee Sara Innamorato of opposing the energy industry.

Innamorato later issued a statement that ARCH2 “has the potential to benefit thousands of skilled union workers in Western Pennsylvania.” She said more federal funding is likely. “We will win our fair share.”

According to the Department of Energy, ARCH2 is projected to create more than 3,000 permanent jobs in addition to 18,000 construction jobs, some of which are likely to be spread across parts of Western Pennsylvania. 

(Left) A screenshot from a Shale Insight presentation shows a projected distribution of jobs from the ARCH2 project. (Right) A screenshot from Shale Insight shows a projected distribution of hydrogen production from the ARCH2 project.

Demand for hydrogen?

At a town hall meeting in Moundsville, West Virginia, last month, EQT CEO Toby Rice acknowledged a fundamental issue with the hydrogen economy: “The biggest problem with hydrogen right now, there’s nobody that uses hydrogen,” he said. He added that hydrogen is a “classic chicken and the egg situation,” in that you need supply to fuel demand, and vice versa.

Another issue, he said, is cost.

“To use hydrogen pure is going to require completely new infrastructure,” he said. “Completely new pipelines, transportation networks. Guess what? That’s going to make it very costly.”

The carbon dioxide pipelines needed for carbon capture and sequestration in a Southwestern Pennsylvania hydrogen hub could cost $10 billion, according to a 2021 study by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Underground storage and other infrastructure would add to that price tag.  

“Right now, there isn’t sufficient demand for either hydrogen or carbon capture to justify the construction of a bunch of pipelines for either carbon or hydrogen,” said Sean O’Leary, a senior researcher for energy and petrochemicals at the Ohio River Valley Institute. 

O’Leary said the buildout of facilities that manufacture and consume hydrogen, along with carbon capture infrastructure, is “something that’s going to play out over time.”

The federal funding awarded, O’Leary said, “isn’t enough to even begin constructing the pipelines and other infrastructure that are necessary for this. It barely scratches the surface.”

Concern for health and environment

A consortium of 32 environmental and health advocacy organizations, meanwhile, expressed deep concerns with the decision to fund the Appalachian hub.

“Whether it’s the continued operation of fossil fuel power plants, the increased risk from new pipelines and underground storage of carbon, or locking in more toxic air and water pollution from shale gas development, the public will have to bear the significant health burden of this hydrogen hub” said Alison L. Steele, executive director of the Environmental Health Project, in a co-signed statement Friday morning. Steele pointed to recent studies by Pitt and the Pennsylvania Department of Health which found increased rates of cancer, asthma attacks and low birth weight among people living in close proximity to fracking. 

“The commitment to continuing these harms just weeks after the findings of the Pennsylvania health study highlights just how deeply our leaders are failing Appalachian communities.”

The statement also pointed to research that questions blue hydrogen’s role as a climate solution.

“Hydrogen produced from natural gas perpetuates our reliance on fossil fuels and locks in our dependency on an unsustainable energy system,” said Shannon Smith, executive director of FracTracker Alliance in the joint statement. “Misrepresenting fossil-fuel derived hydrogen with carbon capture and storage technology as an effective transitional energy source fails to account for a wide array of adverse environmental and social impacts.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional comment on the Department of Energy’s decision.

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Instagram @quinnglabicki.

The post Hydrogen hub funds coming to PA, but Pittsburgh-focused proposal comes up empty appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

In Marianna, the headaches began just as soon as the drilling did. 

Seated in her living room in the Washington County borough of around 500 on an afternoon in August, Kimberly Laskowsky flipped through pages of notes she’s kept through years of deteriorating health. She started chronicling after EQT’s Gahagan well pad was built 850 feet away in West Bethlehem Township.

Laskowsky recorded 374 migraines in one month after the drilling began in 2019. “Like someone stabbing my head with a knife,” she wrote. 

Laskowsky recalled her granddaughter, Samantha, crouched in pain in front of the post office, gripping her head in her hands. “Make it stop! Make it stop!” she had cried. Laskowsky’s neighbor, Tammy Boardley, experienced similar migraines, as did Wesley Silva’s wife, daughter and granddaughter two streets over. 

Read more: FLIR camera in hand, watchdog traverses Washington County, revealing invisible emissions

She had always had low blood pressure, but since the frack it’s been chronically high, “up near 200,” she said. In August 2021, Laskowsky collapsed on her bathroom floor.

That year, the trees across the street lost their leaves in August, Laskowsky remembered.

EQT’s Gahagan well pad (left) rests approximately 800 feet from Maple Street in Marianna (right), where Kimberly Laskowsky and Tammy Boardley live.

In Pennsylvania, state law allows drilling up to 500 feet from a home. Across the commonwealth, nearly 1.5 million people live within a half mile of active oil and gas wells, compressors or processing stations. In Washington County, the most heavily fracked in the state, more than half of residents live within that radius. 

Read more: Study on health benefits of Neville Island coke plant closure raises questions about Clairton

Drilling near homes occurs against the backdrop of mounting scientific evidence which correlates fracking and health problems. Last month, joint studies by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the University of Pittsburgh found a 5-to-7-fold greater risk of developing lymphoma among children within one mile of a well. A separate study found that people with asthma are four to five times more likely to have an asthma attack if they live near wells even after fracking is complete, during production. Toxic hydrocarbons commonly linked to fracking like benzene are listed by the Environmental Protection Agency to cause dizziness, headaches, anemia and neurological disorders.

Last year, researchers from Yale School of Public Health found that children within 2 kilometers of at least one fracking well were two to three times more likely to develop leukemia and suggested that existing setback distances “are insufficiently protective of children’s health.” 

In 2020, the 43rd Statewide Grand Jury found that the current state setback rule barring drilling within 500 feet of homes is “dangerously close” and inadequate for the protection of public health, recommending a 2,500 foot buffer. “An increase in the setback, to 2,500 feet, is far from extreme, but would do a lot to protect residents from risk.”

Read more: Joint Pitt, state studies find link between proximity to fracking and increased cancer rates, asthma attacks, low birth weight

The report concluded: “The closer you live to a gas well, compressor station or pipeline the more likely you are to suffer ill effects.” Josh Shapiro, then the attorney general, pledged to implement the report’s recommendations during his successful campaign for governor last year.

Despite this, legislative efforts to keep drilling at bay have stalled in Harrisburg. And in the absence of a more restrictive state setback law, small municipalities like Marianna and their residents have been left to fend for themselves.

No reforms from Harrisburg

In February, shortly after Shapiro was inaugurated, the state Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] formed a working group to review the findings of the 2020 grand jury report and determine what, if anything, the state should do. 

According to DEP Press Secretary Josslyn Howard, the group is composed of agency legal experts, program deputies and executive staff, and is led by DEP’s chief counsel, Carolina DiGiorgio.

On June 26, Richard Negrin, then-acting DEP secretary, told a Senate committee that he expected the group’s findings by the end of the summer.

Read more: Inside Pennsylvania’s monitoring of the Shell petrochemical complex

State Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, raised what he called a “serious concern” with legislation that was scheduled for a vote the following day. House Bill 170, if passed, would follow the recommendations of the 43rd Grand Jury and expand Pennsylvania’s no-drill zones to restrict fracking within 2,500 feet of homes and 5,000 feet of schools or hospitals. Yaw said he had received a memo from the DEP’s legislative affairs director indicating the administration’s support for the bill. 

“For all practical purposes, that would shut down about 99% of the drilling in the most productive areas in Pennsylvania,” Yaw said. “If it’s your intent to ban drilling, then let’s say, ‘We’re going to ban drilling.’”

In a statement this month to PublicSource, Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Callahan called HB 170 and similar setback proposals a “backdoor ban” on natural gas development, adding: “These proposals are not grounded in fact or science and ignore Pennsylvania’s strong regulatory framework, the continued technological advancements that allow us to continue to produce natural gas safely and responsibly, and the economic and environmental benefits shared by all Pennsylvanians.”

Kimberly Laskowsky flips through pages of notes chronicling her deteriorating health since EQT’s Gahagan well pad was built 850 feet from her home in Marianna.

The day after Negrin’s committee appearance, state Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware County, received an unexpected phone call. Vitali, the majority chair of the state’s House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee was set to preside over a vote on HB 170. Three years after the grand jury report, Vitali was confident the legislation would pass committee; he had secured enough votes to send the bill to the House floor. And with his party now holding a slim majority, it stood a chance.

Read more: Working the brownfields: Postindustrial sites turn into opportunities for local employment and environmental restoration

But at the eleventh hour, Vitali reversed course. “Here’s the situation,” he told the committee. “Five minutes ago I was called by [House Democratic] leadership and asked not to run these bills,” including the setback proposal and an unrelated moratorium on new air quality permits for cryptocurrency data mining facilities.

“I am deeply disappointed by this decision but I am going to comply with the wishes of my leadership,” he continued, before abruptly adjourning the meeting. 

For Vitali, the bill had been an opportunity to make a statement that the health of citizens is more important than the oil and gas industry. “Regrettably, we failed,” he later lamented. “We made just the opposite statement. Special interests prevailed yet again in this building.” By killing the legislation in committee, Vitali suggested that the Democratic leadership was protecting its caucus from a potentially uncomfortable public vote, and signaling that the priority is maintaining broad electoral support. Had he held the vote anyway, Vitali said he was told he could face “consequences”.

Neither House Speaker Joanna McClinton nor Majority Leader Matt Bradford responded to PublicSource’s requests for comment. 

Read more: Allegheny County’s handling of asphalt company’s pollution request leaves some feeling paved over

“Our caucus has failed to prioritize environmental policy,” Vitali said.

DEP spokesperson Howard said the agency will collaborate with the Department of Health and the Office of the Attorney General and will move to conduct “independent scientific research and analysis.” 

Howard said the agency will have more information on its deliberations on setback legislation and other reforms in the coming weeks.

‘No opportunity to say no’ in Marianna

Marianna, the former coal mining community in southern Washington County, once attempted to prevent industry from encroaching on its doorstep. Several years ago, Marianna and the much larger West Bethlehem Township began to work on a “joint venture” that would limit how close drilling could come to local homes, according to Thomas Donahoo, a supervisor in West Bethlehem.

Silva, then-council president in Marianna, said he had traveled to other small towns to see the industry’s impact. “It was appalling. For smaller communities, they really had no regard for anything.”

As the neighboring municipalities considered new zoning that could restrict drilling, officials said, EQT donated money to local causes, including to the local library, a local Christmas parade and $1,000 for a baseball field backstop. 

“If we reached out and asked for help, they helped us,” said Jeremy Berardinelli, Marianna’s current council president. 

Read more: From implosion’s dust, competing visions for Allegheny Valley’s future emerging

By Silva’s account, the company presented to the borough and the township and promised jobs, asking locals: “‘How would you feel if we could bring this town back to life?’ It painted a picture as though big things were going to happen.”

EQT did not respond to questions from PublicSource.

Both municipalities drafted zoning ordinances and discussed a 1,000 foot local setback, according to Silva and Donahoo.

When Marianna’s council held a meeting including a vote on the zoning proposal, it drew several EQT representatives. Meeting minutes from that day show that state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington, was also there in the cramped cinder block building. In a 3-2 vote, Marianna’s council passed a zoning code, but it defers to the state’s 500-foot setback minimum.

West Bethlehem’s supervisors, after drafting a zoning regulation, never voted on it, according to Donahoo, and the township has no regulations to limit drilling near homes.

EQT developed the Gahagan Pad in West Bethlehem Township, just beyond 800 feet from where Laskowsky and Boardley live in Marianna. 

“There was nothing we could do on the borough side to stop it,” said Berardinelli. He opposed the Marianna ordinance in 2017, but has concerns with well pad proximity to homes. “Public safety is paramount,” he said. “It just shouldn’t be that close to a residential area.” 

Read more: As feds move toward decision on hydrogen hubs, players jockey for PA policy

As Silva sees it, a more restrictive statewide setback law would give smaller communities legal recourse to keep industry at bay. “It would level the playing field for a lot of communities,” he said. “Had the regulations been in place, this wouldn’t have happened to small communities like Marianna.” 

Laskowsky recalled an interminable tapping and a high-pitched whine as EQT drilled. On several nights she resolved to leave, sleeping in her minivan down the street to escape the noise and the lights and the fumes.

Boardley, who also endured migraines, recalled vibrations that shook her home with such vigor that ornaments fell from the shelves. 

“I have enough chemicals in me to be living right down on that pad,” said Laskowsky.

Urine samples collected in August 2019 showed Laskowsky and her granddaughter both had elevated levels of metabolites of the volatile organic compounds toluene, ethylbenzene and benzene, a potent carcinogen. 

Read more: Advocates tell Allegheny County Board of Health: More work needed on housing code overhaul

Now that efforts at both the state and local level have failed to rein in fracking, Marianna residents fear things are only poised to worsen.

There’s a new well pad under construction along the borough’s border, and another up the road. 

“You get cancer from this stuff. That’s what I hear,” said Boardley. 

“It sucks to be us sitting here.”

Photographs by Quinn Glabicki.

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on instagram and X @quinnglabicki. 

This story was fact-checked by Punya Bhasin.

The post ‘It’s just too close’: People living near fracking suffer as Pa. and local governments fail to buffer homes appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Beyond the Gahagan Pad and across Ten Mile Creek, in the woods of Marianna, Christina DiGiulio extended a camera from the passenger seat of a white SUV, aiming its lens toward a mass of pipes and valves at an Equitrans Midstream compressor station. The field scientist flipped out the screen, revealing a spectrum of oranges and blues and reds — it was a FLIR camera, a $90,000 piece of technical equipment used to detect otherwise invisible emissions. On the screen, the facility lit up. 

A steady plume of royal blue emissions drifted up from the compressors against a red thermal background on the camera’s display. They stretched skyward and drifted away in the breeze. 

A FLIR camera shows emissions in blue rising from a drilling rig in Washington County on August 29, 2023.

FLIR — for Forward-Looking Infrared — cameras are often used by operators or regulators to detect leaks, but DiGiulio, who works with the health advocacy organization Physicians for Social Responsibility, uses the camera to document invisible emissions in communities encroached by industry. 

Read more: ‘It’s just too close’: People living near fracking suffer as Pa. and local governments fail to buffer homes

The proximity of gas drilling to homes and schools is regulated by the state, and legislative efforts this year to increase buffers have stalled. Many industrial emissions are invisible, and their effects aren’t fully known. A FLIR camera, though, can make the stakes much more tangible.

“When I see something, I know it’s a hydrocarbon,” DiGiulio said. She operated similar chemical detection equipment for the U.S. Department of Defense as an analytical chemist before turning her attention to the shale fields. That day, she and Jodi Borello, an organizer in Washington County with the Center for Coalfield Justice [CCJ], had traversed the hills of Washington County, stopping frequently to image frack pads, compressor stations and other gas infrastructure next to schools, parks and residential neighborhoods.

Christina DiGiulio hikes through the woods and images a well pad with a FLIR camera near Washington, Pennsylvania, on August 29, 2023.

The FLIR image can pick up hydrocarbon emissions at a single source or facility, but it can’t tell methane from benzene, and it can’t detect how much is being emitted. Regardless, the images raise questions about the cumulative effect of invisible industrial pollution on communities like Marianna, in Washington County’s shale country. 

“It’s right next to people’s houses,” DiGiulio said. “Over a long period of time that’s direct contact. It’s cumulative.”

Read more: Study on health benefits of Neville Island coke plant closure raises questions about Clairton

FLIR imaging is in part a way to validate the experiences of those communities. By visualizing the emissions, DiGiulio is hoping to help people to better trust their bodies, and to show that their symptoms could have a culprit. “It’s like trying to train people to not be so desensitized to it anymore.”

Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Center for Coalfield Justice join eight other organizations in advocating for increased setback distances in Pennsylvania. A coalition of organizations advocates for a minimum buffer of 3,281 feet between fracking pads and residences, and greater distances for ethane cracker plants, compressors and natural gas processing plants, based on a number of studies examining health impacts. 

Read more: Inside Pennsylvania’s monitoring of the Shell petrochemical complex

A state law would go a long way in disrupting the exposure that many Pennsylvanians experience but might not see when fracking comes to their backyard, DiGiulio said. But even a new regulation wouldn’t protect communities from the accumulation of pollutants in the most densely drilled parts of the state.

Representatives of the natural gas industry, and some legislators, have said that setbacks would amount to a de facto ban on new drilling.

Photographs by Quinn Glabicki.

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on instagram and X @quinnglabicki. 

This story was fact-checked by Punya Bhasin.

The post FLIR camera in hand, watchdog traverses Washington County, revealing invisible emissions appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

The sun was bright in Duquesne, and Luke Zidek was already sweating. He pulled on a pair of orange fluorescent boots and fixed a respirator over his mouth and nose, sealing himself from the outside world inside of a bright blue hazmat suit.

He flashed an OK sign to his partner, and the two men stepped in unison toward a black barrel lying on its side in a puddle of toxic chemicals. With a wrench, they worked in tandem to plug the leaky spout and enclosed the entire barrel safely in a plastic tank. A stopwatch clicked — just on time. 

Atop the site of a former steel mill, this was merely a training exercise. The liquid spilled was nothing more than water. Zidek is one of more than 250 people who have trained through local programs since 2016 to clean up toxic waste and remediate postindustrial sites known as brownfields. Among the hills of Southwestern Pennsylvania and along the riverbanks that have hosted industry for generations, now-vacant brownfields are ripe for cleanup, transformation and reuse. 

Pennsylvania is home to 90 Superfund sites on the EPA’s National Priorities List, the most of any state besides New Jersey and California. More than 1,300 brownfields are scattered throughout the state; 276 are concentrated in Allegheny County. And despite Appalachia’s receding industrial identity, new brownfields continue to be created year after year. Decades of remediation could be needed to cleanse East Palestine, Ohio, where in February a freight train carrying highly toxic vinyl chloride derailed and exploded. And decades more will be required to reclaim the scattered relics of our coal history.

Read more: They’re calling it ‘bio valley,’ but Hazelwood residents want to know what it means for them

In 2021, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocated an unprecedented $1.5 billion to brownfield-related programs nationwide. It was a significant boon to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s brownfield grant funding. Two local recipients — social services agency Auberle and Landforce, which focuses on land stewardship and workforce development — each received $500,000 in 2022 to train a new generation of professionals who will work to cleanse the region’s industrial messes.

A new career 

The 44-year-old Zidek stepped out of the decontamination pools set up at the parking lot in Duquesne. It was his first time in the suit, and the heat and claustrophobia were beginning to affect him. “I nearly had a panic attack,” he said, panting on the July afternoon.

Zidek spent three years in the Marine Corps handling dogs that sniff for narcotics as a military police officer, and later spent time in Baghdad and Kurdistan detecting explosives as a private contractor. He was medically discharged in 2002 after he fell through a window and lacerated his ulnar nerve, artery and six tendons. “It almost killed me,” he said. Now a disabled veteran, Zidek is turning to a new career cleaning the dirt of industries past. 

Read more: Allegheny County’s handling of asphalt company’s pollution request leaves some feeling paved over

Against the backdrop of climate change and a national shift from carbon-intensive energy and industry, the demand for brownfield work is poised to skyrocket. More than 4,000 regional job openings are expected in the remediation field by 2027 between just five local employers surveyed by Auberle, explained Abby Wolensky, the director of the organization’s Employment Institute. Part of that demand is driven by Allegheny County’s uniquely high density of brownfield sites.

The infrastructure funding more than doubled the amount organizations such as Auberle and Landforce could receive from the EPA grants, up from $200,000 to $500,000. Both organizations have received EPA grants in the past, and the increase in funding enabled Landforce to pay participants an hourly stipend, and Auberle to double the number of program participants.

Auberle recruits from all over Allegheny and Westmoreland counties; a majority of participants come from the Mon Valley, “which tends to face some of the worst environmental disparities,” said Wolensky. Between Hazelwood and Homestead, Duquesne and Clairton, much of the riverfront has an industrial history.

Read more: Replacement housing for Bedford Dwellings gets city’s OK

By putting local people to work in places that have been impacted by industry, “they’re helping to revitalize their own communities,” said Wolensky.

Auberle’s brownfield training program has graduated 117 people since 2016, and 113 of them now have career-track employment in brownfield remediation work, earning an average hourly wage of $18.68. Zidek graduated from Auberle’s program in July along with 12 other people, 10 of whom have already been hired with local brownfield remediation companies. 

At his new job at PRISM Spectrum, an environmental services company in Export, Zidek earns $27 an hour and joined the local union; he’ll focus on asbestos and lead remediation. His specialty will be needed in cases like that of the Cheswick Generating Station, which prior to being demolished earlier this year required nearly a year of asbestos abatement and remediation before the structure could be safely imploded.

Read more: From implosion’s dust, competing visions for Allegheny Valley’s future emerging

Zidek recalled the old pumphouse down by the Monongahela River in Brownsville, where he graduated from high school: “Asbestos all through it,” he remembered. “I think it’s great that they have these grants to clean up these areas and turn them into something useful.” He hopes to train to be a supervisor next, and he told two people at the Veteran’s Administration about the program who plan to enroll in October. 

“I learned the ability to identify markers that are on the chemicals that are being transported through our communities, like on the trains. I could tell if it’s a corrosive or a gas, or an explosive,” said Zidek. “I used to be a chef and a military police and security. I got a whole new career field now.”

Taking to the trails

A few miles up the river, deep in the forests beneath the hilltop neighborhood of Beechview, a crew of about 20 people wearing highlighter shirts and helmets carried shovels and picks into the woods. The Landforce crew was building a network of trails and restoring balance to the long-neglected woodland. 

One morning in mid-July, Thomas Guentner, Landforce’s director of land stewardship, waded through thickets of invasive knotweed, stepping over construction materials protruding through the earth, dumped there long ago.

The work is expanding how we think about brownfields, Guentner explained: “No part of the city was left unscathed by its industrial past.” 

At Seldom Seen Greenway, the soil quality has eroded from years of illegal dumping, and a lack of forest management has allowed invasive vegetation to grip the hillsides, threatening ecological health. By summer’s end, Landforce tamed dense thickets of vines and pulled bricks from the dirt. The crew built 1.2 miles of new trails, connecting residential Beechview to Brashear High School, and in turn to the greenway’s entrance on Route 19. This fall, Landforce will plant more than 100 native trees and, eventually, the greenway will become one of Pittsburgh’s newest parks.

Building trails aids mobility, said Guentner, who pointed to new opportunities for recreation and creating urban connections to nature. Clearing invasive species makes space for native vegetation to grow, boosting the entire ecosystem. And as Pittsburgh copes with climate change and grapples with intense rainfall, flooding and landslides, the need for well-managed and resilient urban woodlands is only growing.

“Every program can be a little bit different. And that’s really the beauty of these grants,” explained Gianna Rosati, senior brownfields project officer with the EPA. To receive the funds, she said, “you need to show the backlog of issues in your community, and obviously the Pittsburgh area has that clear need and issue. So yeah, what they’re doing definitely impacts brownfields, even though they’re not doing the soil assessment or remediation.”

Landforce has completed similar work in Hazelwood, which meets a more traditional definition of a brownfield owing to its history of steel production.

Transforming land, transforming people

Zidek’s time in the military led him to grapple with PTSD and substance abuse. “I struggle with things,” he said. But the programs at Auberle and Landforce are designed to help people overcome barriers to employment such as prior incarceration, addiction history, homelessness or a lack of proven work experience.

Participants in the programs at Landforce and Auberle come from all walks of life.

Read more: Inside Pennsylvania’s monitoring of the Shell petrochemical complex

Pausing between rounds of grueling work on the trails in July, Marvin Carmon, of Homewood, explained that he joined the Landforce crew to learn new skills, which he hopes to bring back to his own community. “We have a whole lot of land back in Homewood that’s not being taken care of,” he said. He dreams of building a network of trails there, too, so kids like his twin boys can enjoy the outdoors in their own backyard.

After completing the horticulture program at Bidwell Training Center in Manchester, Andre Reihl joined the Landforce crew. “I’m hoping it gets me back into the green space,” he said, sharing his dream of building pollinator and rain gardens in his home community of Hazelwood. “I want to make a career out of it.”

By late afternoon, the crew had made its way along most of the trail, smoothing and shaping its contours with picks and shovels and rakes. 

“Look around,” called out Shawn Taylor, a former crew member who’s now a supervisor. He turned his head to look back to where they began, along more than a mile of new trails that the crew had cleared through thickets of trees and invasive vines. “You all built Seldom Park.” 

Photographs by Quinn Glabicki.

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Instagram @quinnglabicki. 

Jack Troy fact-checked this story.

The post Working the brownfields: Postindustrial sites turn into opportunities for local employment and environmental restoration appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health and the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health convened a public meeting Tuesday evening to release the findings of three studies that examine the relationship between living near fracking operations and childhood cancers, asthma and birth outcomes.

One study found that children living within a half-mile from a fracking well had a higher chance of developing cancer. The results showed that the chances of a child developing lymphoma “were 5-7 fold greater when living within 1 mile of a well compared to children with no wells within 5 miles.” The study concluded that those living closest and among the “highest density” of fracking activity were at the highest risk for developing the rare cancer. 

In 2019, then-Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration allocated $3 million to research health concerns for people living in close proximity to fracking operations in Southwestern Pennsylvania. There was a particular interest by many parents if there was a link between Ewing sarcoma and fracking.

The study found “no evidence of an association” between proximity to fracking and Ewing sarcoma, childhood leukemia and other brain and bone cancers. The study was not designed to identify clusters of cancer.

A separate study found that people with asthma are four to five times more likely to have an asthma attack if they live near unconventional natural gas development wells during the production phase. It found a “strong link” between the production phase of unconventional natural gas development and “severe exacerbations, emergency department visits and hospitalization for asthma in people living within 10 miles of one or more wells producing natural gas.”

“The asthma study, to me, is a bombshell,” said Dr. Ned Ketyer, a retired physician who works with Physicians for Social Responsibility, a nonprofit advocacy group. He pointed to the magnitude of risk and also that the probability and severity appear to rise during the production phase, which lasts an average of six years. “These wells are causing severe problems and that’s going to continue for as long as a well produces,” he said. 

After the results were released Tuesday, Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Callahan criticized the asthma study’s methodology, claiming it relies on “faulty metrics.” 

“As an industry rooted in science and engineering, we take objective and transparent research seriously,” he said in a statement. He also said that past research based on field monitoring has demonstrated that “natural gas development is not detrimental to public health.”

The final study showed that mothers who lived near active wells were more likely to have smaller babies, and that babies were about 1 ounce smaller at birth when born to mothers who lived near active wells during production, compressor stations or facilities that accept fracking waste.

The studies included Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties and considered observational health records from 1990-2020.

James Fabisak, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh who presented the research, noted at the Tuesday meeting, which drew nearly 100 attendees, that the study has several limitations, such as the fact that it’s designed to examine associations with disease, not the cause.

Cause for concern

For more than a decade, rare childhood cancers have stirred concern in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Dozens of cases of Ewing sarcoma and other types of cancers have been identified in communities at the heart of the shale boom beginning as early as 2010. And soon after, when kids began to die, parents began to seek answers. 

In April 2019, after parents called on the state to investigate a number of cases in Washington County and specifically the Canon-McMillan School District, the Pennsylvania Department of Health [DOH] released a report that said there was no cancer cluster: the sample size was too small to determine it to be so. The agency assured residents at a meeting at Canon-McMillan High School that October that there was no cause for alarm. 

The 2019 DOH study found a 125% increase in bone cancer prevalence in Washington County, and that rates of Ewing sarcoma in the Canon-McMillan School District were three times higher than expected between 2005 and 2017. 

But the report also stated that rates of Ewing sarcoma were not “consistently or statistically significantly higher than expected” in either Washington County or the district.

In May 2019, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette identified 27 cases of the rare pediatric bone cancer, of which there are roughly 250 cases reported per year in the United States. 

At the time, there were a number of outstanding concerns among the community, explained Heaven Sensky, an organizer with the Center for Coalfield Justice who attended high school at Canon-McMillan alongside several people who were diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma. 

The DOH hadn’t included at least three known cases of Ewing sarcoma in its 2019 assessment, and with such a small sample, those cases mattered. The community asked the department to revise its data, but when the DOH came to Washington County to present findings, they still hadn’t included the cases in the analysis. When parents attempted to ask the agency about a potential link to fracking, they were told to remain within the boundaries of the research, which hadn’t considered industrial development in the Marcellus shale. 

Several days later, with questions unanswered and suspicions percolating, the Center for Coalfield Justice, Physicians for Social Responsibility and another nonprofit, the Environmental Health Project [EHP], organized a bus to Harrisburg. Families wanted an in-depth explanation of what their kids were being exposed to in their air and water and answers to why there were so many cases of this rare disease popping up in concert with the shale boom. 

After being denied a meeting with Wolf, roughly 40 people, including parents who had lost children, packed the space outside of his office, shouting into the vestibule and through his open office door: “We want to talk to you! People are dying, we want to know why,” Ketyer recalled. “Come out and talk to us!” Eventually the governor appeared, and one by one the families told him their stories. Four days later, Wolf announced that Pennsylvania would spend $3 million to research the potential health effects of fracking over the next three years.

The University of Pittsburgh was chosen as the partner institution in 2021, and preliminary results were expected in October 2022. Then the University of Pittsburgh and the DOH pulled out of a planned community meeting at the last minute. Several members of the study’s external advisory board, including Ketyer and Sensky, resigned after state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washinton, sent a letter urging the DOH not to participate in the forum and questioned the participation of “anti-fossil fuel advocates” CCJ and EHP. 

On Tuesday, residents were finally briefed on the findings. 

What else is known

Dozens of studies show an epidemiological correlation between shale gas development and poor health outcomes, and there is a growing body of evidence that shows adverse health impacts on people living nearby. 

Last August, a study from the Yale School of Public Health found that children living in close proximity to fracking sites in Pennsylvania are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia. 

Not a single study shows fracking to be safe, said Ketyer. “It’s inherently dangerous.” 

He added: “We already have enough studies showing it’s not only possible, but probable and likely that people are being harmed. Health protective policies need to be put in place to protect people.”

On the campaign trail, Gov. Josh Shapiro pledged support for fracking reforms recommended by the 43rd state grand jury commissioned by his office as attorney general. Suggestions included expanding no-drill zones from 500 to 2,500 feet from a home. It remains to be seen if these reforms will be prioritized by his administration as governor. 

“It’s really hard to live in constant fear,” said Sensky. She grew up with Luke Blanock, who died from Ewing sarcoma at 19 years old in 2016, and a number of others who’ve been diagnosed. “A lot of us are holding fears about getting cancer that most 26-year-olds don’t hold. It’s kind of like waiting for who’s next.

“We know there is something wrong in our communities,” Sensky concluded. “We know enough. It’s time to take action. Epidemiological studies are never going to show us causation. They never have.”

Quinn Glabicki is the environment and climate reporter at PublicSource and a Report for America corps member. He can be reached at quinn@publicsource.org and on Instagram @quinnglabicki.

The post Joint Pitt, state studies find link between proximity to fracking and increased cancer rates, asthma attacks, low birth weight appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.