A massive report by The Wall Street Journal published today found lead-insulated cables that were installed decades ago by telecoms companies are often poisoning the ground and nearby water. And the risk was known:
“Underground cable presents real possibilities for overexposure” for workers removing them, AT&T said in a 2010 presentation about employee safety at an industry conference. “Some older metropolitan areas may still have over 50% lead cable,” it added.
It could be why lead is still detectable in more than half of children under the age of six:
“A new, uncontrolled source of lead like old telephone cables may partly explain” why children continue to have lead in their blood, said Jack Caravanos, an environmental public-health professor at New York University, who assisted the Journal in its research. “We never knew about it so we never acted on it, unlike lead in paint and pipes.”
The CDC says no level of lead is safe for children.
