AT&T and Verizon Knew About Toxic Lead Cables—and Did Little

For decades, AT&T, Verizon, and other firms dating back to the old Bell System have known that the lead in their networks was a possible health risk to their workers and had the potential to leach into the nearby environment. They knew their employees working with lead regularly had high amounts of the metal in their blood, studies from the 1970s and ’80s show. Environmental records from an AT&T smelting unit in the 1980s show contamination in the soil. Government agencies have conducted inspections, prompted by worker complaints, that led to citations for violations involving lead exposure and other hazardous materials more than a dozen times over four decades. Over the years, AT&T officials themselves expressed concern about possible worker exposure to lead. Risks include kidney issues, heart disease, and reproductive problems in adults. Yet the companies haven’t meaningfully acted on potential health risks to the surrounding communities or made efforts to monitor the cables. The telecommunications industry’s lead-covered cables have been largely unknown to the public. The industry doesn’t have a program to remove or assess their condition. Some lead experts say the cables should be removed, and any contaminated soil should be taken to an appropriate landfill. Removing a lead-sheathed cable could release lead into the environment during the process but some experts say leaving the lead could result in decadeslong contamination.