PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/author/oliver-morrison/)
Prior to PublicSource, Oliver won regional press awards for his environment and health reporting at The Wichita Eagle, including his coverage of wildfires, which led the state of Kansas to launch an audit of its wildfire fighting system. He also led the paper’s coverage of immigration, race and criminal justice reform among other topics. Before the Eagle, he freelanced in New York for publications such as The Atlantic, Education Week and City Limits. He earned his Master’s in multimedia journalism from The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism after working for seven years as a teacher, coach, theater director and administrator in the Arkansas Delta. He is a Seattle native and a graduate of Deep Springs College and the University of Oxford.
PublicSource spoke to five former firefighters who worked there between 1972 and 2010 about how the PFAS-containing firefighting foam was typically used. Their accounts, along with the military review, airport records and scientists who study PFAS, indicate that contamination at the airport is likely.
Airport officials say they're doing everything the law requires regarding PFAS. Experts say the law doesn't go far enough.
It's been more than three and a half years since the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority was put on notice for high lead levels in the city's drinking water, and new data shows the lead levels continue to be out of compliance.
Hacker, the county’s highest paid employee with a salary of more than $220,000, said she thinks she should be judged on the progress she’s helped to usher in, including reduced lead poisoning in children, fewer opioid overdose deaths and a steady decline in air pollution that is on the verge of coming into compliance with the law.
But a number of constraints made the work difficult.
We set out to hear the realities and perceptions of people working in low-wage industries in the Pittsburgh region. Here’s what we learned.
After a Dec. 24 fire at U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works, Allegheny County Health Department officials discussed internally how to respond. The department considered issuing an emergency order to require U.S. Steel to take steps to reduce its emissions, email records show. Officials went as far as drafting such an order, they said. But they didn’t issue it because the company was already voluntarily taking many of the steps the county believed would keep residents safe.
According to a recent report from the U.S. National Guard, toxic firefighting foam has, over time, contaminated the surface and groundwater at two military bases at the southeast end of the airport, fewer than 1.5 miles from Chromack’s home.
The National Guard's report studying contamination of PFAS chemicals on two Pittsburgh-area military bases lists several times when toxic firefighting foam escaped into drainage outfalls, streams and local storm and sewage drains.
To show the trends impacting low-wage workers, we’ve assembled data from government agencies and academic sources tracking measures like unemployment, union membership and racial inequality. Because of geographic limitations in some data sets, the graphs below display a mix of information from the nation, state, Allegheny County, City of Pittsbur
