“This is a monumental win for the environment, the communities who drink Lake Tahoe water, the people with lake-dependent livelihoods, and the millions of annual visitors,” said Chris Shutes, executive director of California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, in a statement last week.
One cable is situated across the mouth of Emerald Bay. The second cable is located along the west shore, running toward Rubicon Bay. Both are remnants of a bygone era of telecommunications infrastructure that is no longer in use. Each cable contains a layer of lead that is encased by an outer layer of steel; however, parts of the cables have been frayed and torn, exposing lead to Tahoe’s waters.
Two scuba divers rediscovered the lead cables in Lake Tahoe in 2012. Nine years later, in 2021, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance filed a lawsuit against AT&T, asking the publicly traded company to remove them.
The lead in the two cables adds up to more than 107,000 pounds, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
At first, AT&T said it would take both cables out of the water to avoid litigation, though the company didn’t admit to wrongdoing, according to court documents. AT&T did much of the legwork to clear the way for the removal of the lead cables, which included securing approval from seven land-use agencies to do the work, along with permitting from California State Parks. The work was slated to begin last year, in September 2023.
But in July 2023, AT&T abruptly halted the effort to remove the cables after the Wall Street Journal published an investigation about abandoned lead cables strewn across the country as part of the Bell System.
“Science shows that AT&T’s cables in lakes and rivers inevitably discharge lead into the water,” said John Kirk Boyd, a lawyer with a doctorate in law who represented the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance in the lawsuit, in an email to SFGATE on Monday. “It’s time for AT&T to take out its garbage across America, and in other countries as well, if they have left them there, too.”
In its investigation, the Wall Street Journal spotlighted the two lead cables in Lake Tahoe and cited its own studies that revealed that high levels of lead were leaching from the cables into Lake Tahoe. At that point, AT&T reopened litigation to determine whether the cables posed a public safety risk.
AT&T hired nine scientists and environmental experts to conduct multiple studies and investigate whether the cables were leaching lead into Lake Tahoe, according to a court document dated Sept. 18. Those studies determined the cables “do not pose any risk to human health or the environment,” the document states.
“Multiple expert analyses have confirmed that the telecommunications cables in Lake Tahoe are safe and pose no threat to public health or the environment,” said Marc Blakeman, president of AT&T California, in a statement on Sept. 18.
The results cleared the way for AT&T to settle the lawsuit and resume the work to get the cables out of Lake Tahoe.
“With the litigation behind us, we are fulfilling our original commitment to remove the cables in Lake Tahoe,” Blakeman said.
The company hopes to complete the removal by Nov. 30, according to court documents, or if weather prevents crews from getting on the lake so late in the fall, then it may get pushed to spring 2025.
The announcement that AT&T will resume work to remove the cables is a celebrated and welcome relief to Lake Tahoe’s environmental advocates and west shore residents, who had been unable to do much about the lead cables in Lake Tahoe until the litigation was resolved.
The League to Save Lake Tahoe has been following the litigation closely from the start.
“It’s good to see a corporation like AT&T stick to their word, even though there was a pause there,” said Jesse Patterson, chief strategy officer for the League to Save Lake Tahoe, in a phone call with SFGATE on Thursday, Sept. 19. “They came back, and they told us they’d come back, so that’s really good to see.”
Getting the lead out of the water is the top priority. “We have a commitment to remove [the cables], we have a time frame that looks reasonable and achievable, and the cables are going to come out of the lake,” Patterson said.
Evan Dreyer owns a home on Rubicon Bay and has also followed the litigation closely from the beginning. When AT&T hit pause on the removal last year, Dreyer organized a petition that more than 700 people signed, calling for the cables’ removal. Now that AT&T is back on course to remove the cables, Dreyer said he is “super happy” the cables will come out of the water imminently.
“For us, it’s never been about lawsuits and who’s to blame. It’s just been about getting the lead out,” Dreyer said. “We think that the odds of it getting out and getting out sooner increased dramatically this week. We’re super positive about it.”
Lake Tahoe is one of the most protected bodies of water in the country — and yet, for decades, 8 miles of lead-clad cables have been abandoned underwater, where they remain today.
Those lead cables have no place in Lake Tahoe, say environmental watchdogs.
Now, after a protracted legal battle, a telecommunications giant agreed to pull the lead cables out of Lake Tahoe as soon as this fall, with an expedient path to do so in the works.
AT&T said it will remove the lead cables from Lake Tahoe as part of a court settlement reached on Sept. 18. The settlement ends a yearslong legal battle with environmental nonprofit California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
“This is a monumental win for the environment, the communities who drink Lake Tahoe water, the people with lake-dependent livelihoods, and the millions of annual visitors,” said Chris Shutes, executive director of California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, in a statement last week.
One cable is situated across the mouth of Emerald Bay. The second cable is located along the west shore, running toward Rubicon Bay. Both are remnants of a bygone era of telecommunications infrastructure that is no longer in use. Each cable contains a layer of lead that is encased by an outer layer of steel; however, parts of the cables have been frayed and torn, exposing lead to Tahoe’s waters.
Two scuba divers rediscovered the lead cables in Lake Tahoe in 2012. Nine years later, in 2021, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance filed a lawsuit against AT&T, asking the publicly traded company to remove them.
The lead in the two cables adds up to more than 107,000 pounds, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
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At first, AT&T said it would take both cables out of the water to avoid litigation, though the company didn’t admit to wrongdoing, according to court documents. AT&T did much of the legwork to clear the way for the removal of the lead cables, which included securing approval from seven land-use agencies to do the work, along with permitting from California State Parks. The work was slated to begin last year, in September 2023.
But in July 2023, AT&T abruptly halted the effort to remove the cables after the Wall Street Journal published an investigation about abandoned lead cables strewn across the country as part of the Bell System.
“Science shows that AT&T’s cables in lakes and rivers inevitably discharge lead into the water,” said John Kirk Boyd, a lawyer with a doctorate in law who represented the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance in the lawsuit, in an email to SFGATE on Monday. “It’s time for AT&T to take out its garbage across America, and in other countries as well, if they have left them there, too.”
In its investigation, the Wall Street Journal spotlighted the two lead cables in Lake Tahoe and cited its own studies that revealed that high levels of lead were leaching from the cables into Lake Tahoe. At that point, AT&T reopened litigation to determine whether the cables posed a public safety risk.
AT&T hired nine scientists and environmental experts to conduct multiple studies and investigate whether the cables were leaching lead into Lake Tahoe, according to a court document dated Sept. 18. Those studies determined the cables “do not pose any risk to human health or the environment,” the document states.
“Multiple expert analyses have confirmed that the telecommunications cables in Lake Tahoe are safe and pose no threat to public health or the environment,” said Marc Blakeman, president of AT&T California, in a statement on Sept. 18.
The results cleared the way for AT&T to settle the lawsuit and resume the work to get the cables out of Lake Tahoe.
“With the litigation behind us, we are fulfilling our original commitment to remove the cables in Lake Tahoe,” Blakeman said.
The company hopes to complete the removal by Nov. 30, according to court documents, or if weather prevents crews from getting on the lake so late in the fall, then it may get pushed to spring 2025.
The announcement that AT&T will resume work to remove the cables is a celebrated and welcome relief to Lake Tahoe’s environmental advocates and west shore residents, who had been unable to do much about the lead cables in Lake Tahoe until the litigation was resolved.
The League to Save Lake Tahoe has been following the litigation closely from the start.
“It’s good to see a corporation like AT&T stick to their word, even though there was a pause there,” said Jesse Patterson, chief strategy officer for the League to Save Lake Tahoe, in a phone call with SFGATE on Thursday, Sept. 19. “They came back, and they told us they’d come back, so that’s really good to see.”
Getting the lead out of the water is the top priority. “We have a commitment to remove [the cables], we have a time frame that looks reasonable and achievable, and the cables are going to come out of the lake,” Patterson said.
Evan Dreyer owns a home on Rubicon Bay and has also followed the litigation closely from the beginning. When AT&T hit pause on the removal last year, Dreyer organized a petition that more than 700 people signed, calling for the cables’ removal. Now that AT&T is back on course to remove the cables, Dreyer said he is “super happy” the cables will come out of the water imminently.
“For us, it’s never been about lawsuits and who’s to blame. It’s just been about getting the lead out,” Dreyer said. “We think that the odds of it getting out and getting out sooner increased dramatically this week. We’re super positive about it.”