Industry Will Continue to 'Follow the Science' on Lead Exposure From Cables: USTelecom

The U.S. telecom industry “prioritizes the health, safety, and environment of its communities and workers,” emailed a USTelecom spokesperson Wednesday. The company was commenting in response to Arizona Attorney General Kristin Mayes’ (D) announcement earlier Wednesday that she’s investigating lead-covered cables that may be present in Arizona, posing a potential environmental and public health risk (see 2311290060).

The inquiry on lead-covered cables “is a critical step in assessing and mitigating any potential environmental or public health-risks to our communities,” said Mayes, who sent 200 letters to telecom operators, including Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink, requesting information on any such cables they own.

Mayes cited a letter sent to AT&T Nov. 20, saying her office already identified a lead-covered cable traversing the Colorado River from Nevada into Arizona’s Mohave County. She requested specific information on the cable, which Bell Telephone placed in 1949, including type, location and length of the cables, and whether they are aerial, underground or underwater. An AT&T spokesperson referred us to USTelecom, saying, “This is an industry issue so the industry organization should respond."

USTelecom will “continue to follow the science, which has not identified that lead-sheathed telecom cables are a leading cause of lead exposure or the cause of a public health issue,” the spokesperson said. Recent federal and state testing “has reinforced this point,” she said, and the industry “remains committed to engaging constructively with stakeholders, including policymakers, regulators, and agencies, on this important matter.”

In July, AT&T strongly disagreed with a Wall Street Journal series asserting that inoperative lead-clad telecom cables at the bottom of Lake Tahoe are a significant public health concern, the company said in a supplemental status report (see 2307200027) in a suit brought by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance vs. AT&T in U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento.

The newspaper's assertions “are based on testing of water samples collected by the same divers” who aided the alliance in its litigation, AT&T said then. The information reported by the WSJ “differs dramatically from the expert testing commissioned by AT&T,” the company said, saying the “responsible course of action is to develop a further record rather than remove the Lake Tahoe cables and work cooperatively with regulators and other stakeholders on a risk assessment."

USTelecom’s backgrounder on EPA testing cited AT&T’s July 25 update saying a test of the underwater cables in Lake Tahoe found that “the lead-clad cables in Lake Tahoe do not pose a public health concern and that no lead was detected leaching from the Lake Tahoe cables,” reaffirming findings from 2021.

The trade group also referenced AT&T's lead testing of aerial cables in the Detroit area, showing “no meaningful difference in measured lead levels between the soil directly below the cables and background levels in the same area (e.g., across the street where no cables exist).” The lead levels in soil below the cables were less than the average household soil lead levels in the Midwest as reported by the Housing and Urban Development Department and less than the EPA’s screening level for lead in residential soil, it said.

The backgrounder also referenced soil testing by New York state in Verizon’s Wappingers Falls location that “found no evidence of elevated or widespread lead contamination in the area sampled” along with similar findings from other testing sites identified by the WSJ in West Orange, New Jersey; Coal Center, Pennsylvania; and seven parishes in Louisiana.