Seeing industrial pollution through a journalist’s lens

The pollutants produced by extractive industries are often measured in parts per billion. Not something you can photograph directly, and not a data set that is a gripping narrative in itself, but their impact is tangible and it’s devastating communities and wildlife across the world.

Photographing and writing for Report for America newsroom PublicSource in Pittsburgh, corps member Quinn Glabicki is often tasked with representing the invisible chemicals’ impact on his community. And as Glabicki said, “There’s only so many pictures of smokestacks you can take.”