WSJ Exposes TelCo’s Toxic Lead Legacy

In July 2023, the Wall Street Journal investigative unit published Legacy of Lead, a landmark editorial series of some ten news stories, addressing how “America is Wrapped in Miles of Toxic Lead Cables”.

The series spotlights AT&T, Verizon, Bell Labs, Western Electric, Frontier, Lumen Technologies and the role they and other companies had with the use and handling of lead cables all across the nation.

In its investigation, a Pulitzer prize winning team at the Journal found that the major legacy telecom companies were keenly aware, decades ago, of the health and environmental risks of the lead cables within their networks.

The highly detailed report – which includes dozens of interviews from members of our Association – determines corporate decision makers apparently did very little to protect their workers’ health and safety, despite some of their own testing and experts expressing concerns about workers’ over exposure to lead on the job.

Here is a 30,000 foot overview of some of the findings reported in the series:

• AT&T refutes the Wall Street Journal’s reporting, saying it “conflicts not only with what independent experts and long-standing science have stated about the safety of lead-clad telecom cables but also our own testing.”
• Verizon responded saying the company is “taking these concerns regarding lead-sheathed cables very seriously.”
• Employee medical studies the companies had at – AT&T, Verizon, and Bell Labs – found those who regularly worked with lead had elevated lead levels in their blood.
• By 1956, Bell System companies were using roughly 100 million pounds of lead per year.
• In the 1970s, Bell Laboratories was an industry leader in lead research and had invented a device that required only a drop of blood to screen for lead exposure.
• In 1983, there were still more than 40,000 Bell system employees regularly working with lead.
• A former Senior Manager at AT&T explains lead-covered cables are throughout the country, saying “some older metropolitan areas may still have over 50% lead cable.” In his working years this manager argued for increased worker protection when handling lead, proper signage, respiratory protection, and Tyvek coveralls.
• A 45 year cable splicer claims Bell Systems companies “knew the risks, but they didn’t want to do a lot to mitigate it.” In the 1980s, company testing found high levels of lead in the splicer’s blood, but management instructed him to return to the job.
• A 1977 medical study of female Western Electric employees working with lead-soldering, found lead levels nearly triple of the general population level.
• In 1978, a letter between CWA officials noted that AT&T “has confirmed that cable splicers may be exposed to a lead hazard.”
• A 1980 paper jointly published by Mount Sinai, Bell Labs, and the New York City Health Department concluded that, of the 90 cable splicers examined, their average blood-lead levels were greater than 27 micrograms per deciliter, and 29% of them reported central nervous system symptoms.
• By the mid-1980s, through its Nassau Metals division, AT&T was recycling large quantities of this toxic lead in Gaston, SC, receiving roughly 50 million pounds of lead-covered cables per year. It identified “150 melt shop employees overexposed to lead.”
• 1985 environmental studies at Gaston, SC, found those Nassau Metals workers were “exposed to airborne lead nearly 17 times OSHA’s safety standard.”
• According to Verizon data of 208 of its employees, tested between 2007 and 2016, 85, or roughly 40%, had blood-lead levels above 3.5 micrograms per deciliter – which is the level at which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises seeking medical treatment.
• A 2021 study by Mount Sinai of 20 Verizon employees with an average tenure at the company of 23 years, found that 60% of them had measurable lead levels in their tibias. The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Rabeea Khan stated, “the fact that we can detect it in your bones suggests you have had long-term exposure.”
• One couple who both worked for the company – he spliced lead cables, she worked with lead solder, and her dad as an installer and repairman working with lead. Each worked for one of the key telecom companies for decades, and are now sick.
• One retiree recounted her experiences, of six years melting lead solder while wearing no respiratory protection and fingerless gloves.
• Another retiree spoke about her experience in AT&T’s San Diego central offices melting lead solder to connect wire without any respiratory protection.
• One Verizon employee that retired in 2021 after 40 years of working with lead told the Journal he had raised concerns with management but was told “if you don’t feel safe, we’ll send someone else.”