America Is Wrapped in Toxic Lead Cables

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Business News, Daily News, News

4.2 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an 18-month investigation, The Wall Street Journal found thousands of lead covered cables across America, some leaching the toxic metal into places where people live, work and play. We travel with the team across the country to test the soil and water around these cables and speak to families living near them. WSJ’s Susan Pulliam and Shalini Ramachandran explain what these high levels of lead in The Journal's sampling could mean for people across the country. Further Reading: - America Is Wrapped in Miles of Toxic Lead Cables - How the Journal Investigated Hidden Lead Cables Circling the U.S. - Bayou Teche Is an Epicenter of America’s Lead Cable Problem Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a freezing March morning in Northern California, two divers headed out in a boat.
0:12.9	We're in amazing Lake Tahoe right now.
0:16.6	It's just crazy.
0:17.6	It's frigid and beautiful and there's not a boat in sight except for us.
0:23.9	They were out there to find two underwater telephone cables.
0:27.7	Both these cables were looking at.
0:29.4	They've been abandoned for a long time.
0:34.0	One of the divers geared up to go into the lake to carefully collect sediment and water samples
0:39.6	around the cables.
0:46.4	They wanted to find out whether these cables were releasing a toxic material into the lake.
0:53.1	That material led.
0:58.4	The divers were working with an investigative team at the Wall Street Journal that has
1:02.5	been looking into thousands of old lead cables left around the country by AT&T, Verizon,
1:09.1	and other telephone companies.
1:12.7	Over more than a year of reporting, the journal found that these cables have been leaching
1:17.6	lead into places where Americans live, work, and play.
1:23.8	This started with my getting a tip that AT&T was removing an old lead cable in Lake Tahoe,
1:33.7	which I found curious because I had covered cable and telecom for a long time and had never
1:38.2	heard of lead cables in the telecom networks.
1:41.4	That's our colleague, Shalani Ramachandran.
1:44.1	She was surprised about that because lead is considered dangerous.
1:49.7	In the 70s, the US government started banning lead in paint and gasoline.
	...

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