PublicSource

09/08/2026

When Brittani Murray moved to Mount Oliver in 2021, her block on Amanda Avenue boasted one single public tree. It stood in a vacant lot owned by the borough, surrounded by masses of disorderly weeds, its roots resisting confinement, cracking the concrete like Godzilla breaching the surface of the sea. Genus uncertain, in and of itself it was nothing noteworthy: not the oak famed for mightiness or the willow fraught with emotion.

Still though, it was a tree. “This was a big, beautiful tree,” Murray said. “It was our only real shade.” Residents catching buses at nearby stops with neither shelter nor seats waited it out beneath its branches, resting in chairs Murray placed there for that purpose. The tree served as backdrop for her daughter’s first- and last-day-of-school pictures.

In 2023, the borough cut it down. Murray asked the worker tasked with the chore why. They didn’t know. The tree had been the only one nearby, save a couple in private yards sticking to themselves behind fences. So Murray decided to replace it, maybe even expand upon it, by securing some sidewalk plantings.

But replacing that tree has not been an easy task.

Read more at publicsource.org

✍️: Lissa Brennan
📸: Jason Alpert-Wisnia

09/08/2026

Pa. fines Shell $15 million for air pollution from its Beaver County plastics plant.
The plant has routinely exceeded allowable limits on nitrogen oxide, benzene and other pollutants, according to a consent decree signed Friday.
https://buff.ly/TDjjbeL

The plant has routinely exceeded allowable limits on nitrogen oxide, benzene and other pollutants, according to a consent decree signed Friday.

09/08/2026

A Hilltop ‘Lorax’ wants just one public tree on her block. Will a border thwart her?
One woman’s bid to replace the last public tree on her Mount Oliver block provided an education in the challenges that emerge when a city meets a borough, an avenue becomes a street and shade takes a backseat to other priorities.
https://buff.ly/h8Shhx5

On Mount Oliver's Amanda Avenue, a homeowner's yearslong quest to replant one tree shows how a city-borough line can stall the simplest requests.

09/06/2026

Announcing three more workshops where you can learn to make a zine!

Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh (Children's Museum of Pittsburgh) and Public Source are working together to engage people of all ages to create small, self-made zines that explore the people, places and experiences around us.

This is an open call: Submit your zine by Sept. 30 for a chance to have it included in the exhibit!

If you want to participate but don’t know where to start, we and our partners are hosting a series of workshops and events where you can make a zine, learn a new skill or get some inspiration.

You can see the full list of zine workshops and events on publicsource.org.

09/04/2026

A yearslong effort to establish the Pittsburgh area’s largest hyperscale data center faces new hurdles. From the emergence of a data center moratorium and new zoning ordinance proposal to a lawsuit challenging the center’s current progress.

Heightened public concern has followed. More than 50 residents attended a meeting of Upper Burrell Township’s board of supervisors on Wednesday, most of whom opposed the data center.

“Alcoa brought a lot of good things to this community,” said Upper Burrell resident David Ostrosky, referring to the site’s former owner. “Bottom line is, I don’t get that vibe from these guys.”

Ostrosky and other public speakers pressed the board for more transparency about its approval processes for work permits and site plans. They also called for more answers about the current status of work there.

“It doesn’t look good when you don’t answer questions,” said Guy Fuller, a New Kensington resident who is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit against the board.

Read more at publicsource.org

✍️: Mia Hollie
📹: Penny De La Cruz-Mustafa

09/04/2026

“We talk a lot about resilience in the disabled community, and yes, disabled people can be incredibly resilient. But we should also ask why we are required to be so resilient just to get the opportunity to work, support ourselves and use the skills we fought so hard to build.”

Read Zarin Hamid’s full first-person essay at publicsource.org.

📸: Stephanie Strasburg

09/04/2026

Are Pittsburgh-area storms leaving you without power? We want to hear about it.
https://buff.ly/zPyMsN1

Storms left thousands across the Pittsburgh region without power. Pittsburgh's Public Source wants to hear about your outage experience.

09/04/2026

My disability wasn’t the problem. The assumptions about it were.
I built a career in cybersecurity, lost a job after seeking an ADA accommodation and encountered the same doubts while training as a blackjack dealer. Disabled people shouldn’t have to keep proving what they can do.
https://buff.ly/bPFMDe6

I lost a cybersecurity job after asking for an ADA accommodation. Months later, a casino nearly rejected me. A few brave people have been my aces.

09/03/2026

Pressured by residents, Upper Burrell Township supervisors established a moratorium to buy time to develop a zoning ordinance to regulate future data center development.

Much of that work took place over the summer with input from residents. The planning commission approved a draft of the ordinance that those residents said they were familiar with on July 21.

Since then, a new draft ordinance has populated on the township’s website, according to advocacy group Protect-PT. The draft defines data centers and limits where they can be built. It also requires the developers of the new center to perform noise and vibration studies.

But the introduction of a power generation requirement opens up a whole new can of worms, residents said at the meeting.

Now, data center developers would be required to provide their own “baseload generation power,” or “the constant floor of power usage that never goes away,” by building new power generation sites or repurposing existing ones.

Several public speakers urged the board to either include regulation of the power generation station into the data center ordinance, or pass a separate power generation station ordinance before the data center one. Kenneth Slahtovsky, the commissioners vice chair, said both should be separate, and that “my hands are full with what we have here.”

The moratorium ends on Nov. 2.

Read more at publicsource.org

✍️: Mia Hollie
📸: Danny Arensberg

09/03/2026

Upper Burrell residents decry transparency as data center progresses despite moratorium and a lawsuit.
Since passing a moratorium on new data center developments in May, Upper Burrell commissioners have approved a land development plan for TECfusions.
https://buff.ly/o8ZLrX6

Pittsburgh's Public Source sat in on an Upper Burrell meeting where a data center kept advancing despite a lawsuit and residents' transparency demands.