Behind the Story: Journalist Explores the Costs Communities, Climate Pay When Industries Do Business

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Quinn Glabicki is a writer, photographer, and a 2025 Longworth Media Fellow covering climate and the environment at PublicSource, a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. His Pulitzer Center-supported project EQT's Gas Play, which examines a fracking giant’s impact on nearby residents in West Virginia, was awarded the 2025 Victor K. McElheny Award for local and regional science journalism. An exhibition of photos from the project was featured at the Photoville Festival in New York in early June. 

Another Center-supported project by Glabicki, Pittsburgh-Based Alcoa Mines an Endangered Australian Forest at the Peril of Public Health and the Climate, uncovers Alcoa’s expansion into a Western Australian forest on the brink of collapse.

Former Pulitzer Center Intern Morgan Varnado interviewed Glabicki about his reporting projects and his experience as a climate reporter and photojournalist. (Listen to portions of Varnado's interview with Glabicki below.) 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Morgan Varnado: Before I get into your previous work, I wanted to ask about your most recent Pulitzer Center-supported project, Pittsburgh-Based Alcoa Mines an Endangered Australian Forest at the Peril of Public Health and the Climate.

Quinn Glabicki: We went to Australia. We got a tip last summer about a local company here in Pittsburgh called Alcoa—historically called the Aluminum Company of America. That company sources about three-quarters of its global production from mines in Western Australia.

It just so happens that those mines are located within one of the world's rarest forests. That forest as of 2022 has been declared on the brink of collapse due to climate change. As that has happened, the company has pushed to mine deeper into that forest.

We were approached by some folks out in Western Australia last summer who wanted us to do a story on it. I work at an outlet called PublicSource. It's a pretty small nonprofit outlet. So flying to Australia for three weeks and doing that kind of reporting trip didn't really seem feasible. But we were able to get some funding from the Pulitzer Center to allow us to do that. We found out about that in February, and then in March we were in Australia for three weeks, 16 days, straight reporting. 

It was an awesome experience and one that, for me, was certainly unexpected at an outlet like PublicSource. We cover local news, and to some extent this is local news, but it just so happens that it's taking place pretty much as far away as you can possibly get.

Varnado: In your reporting on extractive industries, have you found any correlations between how corporations like Alcoa or EQT operate in America versus internationally?

Glabicki: I've worked as an environmental reporter for three years now. In a place like Pittsburgh, with its industrial history, a lot of the reporting I do is focused on industry. Of course that includes EQT, Alcoa, [and] all of the legacy industries that we have here.

Reflecting on three years of reporting, I think that certainly there are a lot of parallels. To some extent the stories feel very similar. These are all extractive industries and inherently there is a cost to doing business whether that is an environmental, climate cost, or human health cost. Those can vary, but there is always a trade-off. 

To speak specifically to EQT, this is western Pennsylvania and northern Appalachia, which is one of the biggest gas-producing regions in the world. For a long time there has been this implicit arrangement or equation that has included some of those trade-offs—water contamination and air pollution on one side, cheap homegrown energy on the other. What we're seeing today is that equation getting a bit upset as we're trying to export more of that product abroad. That could very well mean higher energy prices for people here.

Varnado: Who are the beneficiaries of such an imbalance in the equation?

Glabicki: Yeah, as a local reporter certainly there are beneficiaries that we are aware of, but at the very local level. To look at the gas industry, for example, the beneficiaries are people who lease their land to gas companies to receive a share of those profits. The question becomes, is that worthwhile? And to some people, it certainly can be. I've talked to a lot of people who receive in some cases quite a substantial dollar figure in royalties.

But at the same time, they're really impacted by emissions. Their health has been impacted; they've been displaced from their homes. Ironically in some cases it is those royalties that allow a family to relocate because of the emissions that are associated with that.

That's on the local level. When you take a step back and look at the real beneficiaries of that industry, Pittsburgh and this region more generally are a net exporter of climate change. What I mean is we are a place where gas is being pulled out of the ground, steel is being forged, or chemicals are being made. But the real effects of climate change are being felt in other places. As a region, we're really starting to see those impacts, but not to the level that other places are. 

Audio courtesy of Morgan Varnado. 2025.

Varnado: What are your thoughts on EQT’s tactics of extraction and the lack of defenses for residents? What can people do to defend against such corporations?

Glabicki: What the reporting showed was that despite sustained and quite dramatic complaints to public agencies at the local, state, and federal level, nothing was really done to stop what was happening in this one little hollow in West Virginia.

Unfortunately, that's not a story that is unique to this one place in West Virginia. What we're seeing right now in the federal government is that regulatory framework—which when I reported this project was clearly ineffective in protecting human health and [the] environment—is being further eroded certainly at the federal level.

When we look at that as a whole, it's only a matter of time before these stories become more common. It's one thing to report on policy at the federal level or state policy in a vacuum, but these policies have a big effect on people like the families in Knob Fork [West Virginia]. The extent that we are weakening regulations has a direct impact on people in rural places that might be dealing with these issues. What our reporting showed was that there's a clear need for increased oversight and regulation of these industries.

Yet what we're seeing is exactly the opposite. 

Varnado: In the story “Scrutiny of EQT Fracking Likely To Shift in 2025,” you discussed the potential changes in the EPA under the Trump administration. What are your thoughts now on those previous predictions and the current climate as the EPA turns its focus toward deregulation and extraction.

Glabicki: On one hand, Trump has kind of embraced this “drill, baby, drill” rhetoric, which opens the door to a lot more production. Yet when you increase production like that you're going to change your supply-and-demand equation.

From a gas company perspective, that might not be what you want to do. You have more and more supply that's gonna drive down prices and, thus, profits. I don't know that there is a cohesive set of policies that have a cohesive set of outcomes; yet, I think that those policies are still taking shape.

One thing that is clear is that protections for health and the environment are far less existent than they were a hundred and some days ago. Whatever the impact of policies as it relates to production, export, or at the facility level—particularly your big facilities that might be regulated by the EPA— there's a great cause for concern about what might be coming.

We have people overseeing these who have said that they don't believe climate change exists, that they've shown a willingness to embrace industry and a willingness to issue protections for local communities. As an environmental reporter, that opens the door to a lot of questions like, "How is this going to affect local communities?"

When you have a massive policy shift and various industrial facilities spread out across a region like this, the question becomes how does someone living next to that place experience this policy shift? What is its outcome for everyday Americans?

Varnado: It seems that there's a corporatization of the regulatory process. In what ways have you noticed this process come about and what may be its effects? 
 

Glabicki: As much as this shift has taken place on the federal level, at the state level we elected a new [U.S.] senator, Dave McCormick, who echoes a lot of the rhetoric of fossil fuel executives.

Toby Rice [EQT’s president and chief executive officer] in particular. Toby Rice's message for years has been “let's unleash American energy [and] gas exports.” That exact language was repeated in speeches by someone who is now in [the] Senate. So that federal dismantling of environmental regulations and the embrace of the fossil industry at large also extends to the state level. 

What the overall impact of that will be, I can't say. There are certainly a whole range of different players and checks and balances when it comes to actually making environmental policy decisions.

However, there is this embrace of a certain worldview and belief in America's so-called energy dominance as a policy priority. That extends from the federal government on down. We saw [that] in the last election. For a fossil fuel executive like Toby Rice, that was a big win.

But as I mentioned before, there's also this trade-off. Like you would want to embrace production, but not to the extent that it harms your profits. At the end of the day, those companies are seeking to increase profits for shareholders.

There's an equation there, a needle that needs to be threaded.

Audio courtesy of Morgan Varnado. 2025.

Varnado: There's definite dissonance in language between the often greenwashed statements of executives versus the rhetoric of citizens affected by EQT’s extraction. How did you navigate both sides while reporting?

Glabicki: That contradiction exists at a number of different levels. At the very local level, you have a company that says that they are a case study for how hydrocarbon production can be done responsibly. Yet if you talk to any one of the people that we included in our reporting, they would have a very different perspective on that statement. But that contradiction also extends to this overarching campaign that the company is running. They cast American gas exports as quote unquote “the largest green initiative on the planet.”

That's something that they've spent considerable amounts of money lobbying for and pursuing public relations campaigns in the name of. Yet all of the scientists that I've spoken to wholeheartedly rejected that. There is a pretty clear message from the scientific community that the solution to a problem caused by fossil fuels cannot be more fossil fuels.

Yet, there are still arguments being made that gas is less harmful to the climate than coal and therefore [it] is a climate solution. As a global community, we are hungry for solutions to what is, in my opinion, the greatest crisis facing humanity ever. There is [an] appetite for proposals that claim to address that.  

I don't know that the scientists that I've spoken to would say that natural gas is not one of those solutions. Yet at the same time governments all over the world are embracing liquified natural gas. I think that it's also not a problem that we can say is the fault of the gas industry or the fossil fuel industry at large. 

I'm sitting here on my computer with lights on with my fridge running. For the most part, that's powered by fossil fuels. I think that that is something that extends everywhere. We have an energy equation and for better or worse fossil fuels and gas are [going to] be a part of that for the foreseeable future.

But I do think that to characterize something as a global savior in the way that it has been certainly raises some questions.

Varnado: As a journalist, how was it finding sources on both sides?

Glabicki: First of all, I never was able to talk to EQT about any of this. That's not for lack of trying. The company does a lot of public appearances, town hall meetings, climate conferences, gas conferences. So in order to weave in what I think is a rather robust company perspective I went to these town hall meetings in rural Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

I went to the fracking industry conference. I dug through online interviews and Fox News clips or CNBC clips of Toby Rice. That was how we sourced what the company [was] saying. It was really interesting, too, because that's not necessarily what they would say to a reporter, but that was what they're saying to the general public and to policymakers.

Those material[s] formed the foundation for this inherent contradiction that runs throughout the whole series, which is this disconnect between what people on the ground are experiencing and what the company is selling.

It was integral to the whole project that we [had] sourcing from the company. These people have been experiencing this in such a negative way for several years—New Freeport [Pennsylvania] being unable to drink their water from their wells. The company is selling this whole other vision. Meanwhile they're also fully denying what these communities are saying they experience.

In the case of New Freeport, the company has argued [to] the state authorities that [the] incident never occurred. Yet something has affected people's water. It's not just one person either, it's a whole community. The same thing in Knob Fork [West Virginia], people who had pretty severe illness for a long time in testing and gas imaging.

There was no real acknowledgement, certainly not from the company and really from regulators either.

Varnado: Do you think that cognitive dissidence is purposeful to allow their expansion? 

Glabicki: I don't know.

There is certainly a public relations strategy. That's not anything that is unique to a company like EQT, but it was a strategic choice not to talk to me. It's a strategic choice to argue what they argue to regulators. It's a strategic choice to make frequent appearances on major news networks and to sell this vision in a way that is quite prominent—as it was put to me, evangelical. That was a characterization that someone else made to me in the course of reporting. But I think it's an apt way of looking at it, this evangelical belief in natural gas that might not acknowledge the trade-offs to the extent that local communities might hope.

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Varnado: One thing I appreciated throughout the entire project was the images. Can you elaborate on the photo-taking process?

Glabicki: I began my whole journalistic journey as a photographer.

So that's really central to how I tell stories. It can be quite challenging, particularly with a story like this, where you're dealing with invisible emissions— a problem that is not easily documentable visually. My way of working around that was to really show the stakes of what was happening, to spend time with the people at the center of it, show how daily life continues despite what is going on, and how daily life is changed. 

[It] takes a lot of time to build trust with people. I slept on their couch. [I] got up early and went hunting with them [during] deer season. Part of that was to show the rural character of this place. That this is a place that's formed by these values and activities. Yet, that is all being disrupted and displaced by [what] we're writing about in the text.

That is really an integral part of the storytelling process. That's how I've always done things. I don't know if I could do it a different way. 

Varnado: Images are very important, especially for climate reporting, where we may encounter a lot of different perspectives, greenwashing or where audiences may need help visualizing scientific language.

Glabicki: Climate reporting and climate communication moves at a very slow pace. When we talk about breaking news climate stories increasingly [we see] extreme weather or fires.

But what is happening behind all of that is this really slow process of change. That can be really challenging to report in a way that humanizes it. I think that there are a lot of breaking news climate stories, but besides extreme weather it's a lot of scientific studies. So my challenge as a photographer in particular is how do we situate the human within all of that?

At points, that can be quite frustrating because everything that I love to do in terms of being a photographer is like going out and, and photographing things.

But, I think that [the] informational component of it too is really important. I think that combining those [two sides] is a necessity. But photos, at least in my perspective, draw people into a story that might communicate stakes and a sense of shared experience among a reader and the person imaged in [the] project.

Varnado: How was it investigating Alcoa’s environmental expansion in Western Australia and how may it have differed from your work in the United States?

Glabicki: So [with] the EQT project I think those people lived two hours from where I live, this [project] is on the other side of the world. We were operating under different constraints as far as time and resources. I reported this with a colleague, Deputy Editor at PublicSource Jamie Wiggin. We did a lot of legwork on the front end to make connections with sources. [For] the first story in that series the main character is the forest itself.

We visit with First Nations people, the local community who have lived in this area for 50,000 years. They told us that this mining is really an extension of their colonial history and the pain that has been associated with that for generations.

There are people that have this really ancient connection to this land and who have cared for it. There's a degree of opposition and perspective from these people that European settlers there can't really embody.

We talked to them, we went kangaroo hunting and I photographed that. The purpose was to show how this land continues to provide despite the scars of mining for people who have relied on the land for as long as humans have been around.

At the same time we also spoke with scientists who said that this forest can never really be back together. It's an ancient forest and the species there are unique. The IPCC [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has named it on the brink of collapse due to a warming climate and deforestation.

They say that further loss threatens ecological collapse. That's the punchline of the first story. Then there's the impact on [the] community. The company operates three refineries there. Two of them are located in historically agrarian communities.

There are these big mountains of toxic residue that have grown longer and taller every year since Alcoa arrived in the early 1960s. Now the footprint of that waste pile is larger than the town itself. The town has about 5,000 people. 

We interviewed people from a public health perspective, but also a mental health perspective. What is the toll of living in this environment next to one of the largest mines in the world and these associated residue waste areas? That's the secondary human component. For as big as this mine is and its impact on the forest, there are people who live right next to it and who have worked there. They all have something to say.

Audio courtesy of Morgan Varnado. 2025.

Varnado: Is there a similar mental health effect among those citizens in northern Appalachia affected by EQT? 

Glabicki: No doubt. I've talked to a lot of people who live near fracking sites in particular. It's this weird thing where you might not see it, you might not smell it, but you might feel it.

Varnado: When American companies expand internationally, how do regulations change? What does regulation look like in Australia?

Glabicki: Very different, part of our reporting is focused on this act of Parliament passed in the 1960s in Western Australia that allows Alcoa to bypass a number of environmental regulations.

I think it's a cultural thing as well. We had to learn quite quickly as far as what is the regulatory attitude toward mining. Mining is something that really props up a significant portion of not just the Western Australian economy, but the Australian economy at large.

That equation that exists in northern Appalachia, [a] similar equation exists in Australia as well. What are the harms environmental or otherwise that we as a people or state or constituents might be willing to accept in exchange for jobs or economic stability? What point do we say we're not willing to accept that anymore? 

Some of the people that we spoke to point to that arrangement that I mentioned as being outdated. There is a conversation that is brewing in Australia right now about how do we modernize that agreement and move forward?

Not necessarily shutting Alcoa down, but how do we bring this into the modern world and regulate this in a way that might mitigate some of those impacts?

Varnado: In your reporting, have you seen any efforts to pull away from that dependence or weaken the power of these big companies?

Glabicki: Not since Trump got elected.

For as much effort we put into reporting on corporate accountability projects, there is also this parallel narrative of things being built. There are facilities popping up, urban farms that address food system shortages. There are local efforts to expand bike lane infrastructure. I think the scale of these conversations couldn't really be more different.

But those stories are still quite significant. There are always conversations of, particularly [in] Pittsburgh, how do we reuse post-industrial sites? Something that has for generations occupied this land and contaminated this land, how do we transform that into something that can contribute to our future? 

One of my favorite parks in Pittsburgh right now is undergoing a transformation into a solar farm. That used to be where they used to drum dump slag—the leftover waste from making steel. Now they're remediating it and turning it into solar fields. For my own reporting I want to start and try to weave in those stories as well.

Because it's not just a story of big companies doing big-company things, it's also a story of how communities can build their own future.