According to the Wall Street Journal telecom companies laid “toxic lead ables” decades ago  posing a hidden health hazard today.  Read America Is Wrapped in Miles of Toxic Lead Cables by the Wall Street Journal. 

Excerpts from Fierce Telecom reporting: 

“the Wall Street Journal published an investigative journalism exposé over the weekend, reporting that AT&T, Verizon and other telecom companies have left a massive network across the U.S. of old cables covered in toxic lead.

The paper said that lead from at least 2,000 old telco cables has degraded over time and contaminated myriad locations in water, in the soil and from overhead lines. Many of these locations are in places where people live and work. Some of the locations are in schoolyards. According to its independent tests, some lead levels in sediment and soil measured 14.5 times the EPA threshold for areas where children play. “Doctors say that no amount of contact with lead is safe, whether ingested or inhaled, particularly for children’s physical and mental development,” stated the Journal.

AT&T said in a written statement to WSJ: “The health, safety and well-being of our people, our customers, and our communities is of paramount importance” but that the Journal’s reporting on lead-sheathed cables “conflicts not only with what independent experts and longstanding science have stated about the safety of lead-clad telecom cables but also our own testing.”

Read more at Fierce Telecom WSJ exposes major environmental issue for AT&T and Verizon