Washington Legal Foundation: LEAD-WRAPPED TELECOM CABLES: A Case Study in Media Sensationalism vs. Credible Scientific Review
By Nancy B. Beck, PhD, BABT and Eric J. Murdock, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP | wlf.org Nancy B. Beck, PhD, DABT is a toxicologist and the Director of Regulatory Science in the Washington, D.C. office of Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. She has over twenty years of applied public health experience, sixteen of which were from her…
Poughkeepsie Journal: State taking no further action on lead levels in Wappingers Falls playground
Poughkeepsie Journal – By Saba Ali – January 26, 2024 The New York State Department of Health will not be taking any further action regarding a playground in the Village of Wappingers that was found to have lead in the soil. Temple Park was temporarily closed last summer due to a report claiming old cable…
Reuters: US EPA says no immediate lead health threats from telecom cables
WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. environmental regulator said Thursday soil sampling for lead in two Pennsylvania towns near telecommunications cables indicate “no threats to the health of people nearby that would warrant” an immediate government response, despite some findings of the pollutant. The Environmental Protection Agency testing was prompted by an investigation by the Wall…
Fierce Telecom: Verizon says its lead tests found no ‘public health risk’ at WSJ sites
Verizon last week announced it conducted lead cable testing in three sites mentioned in the Wall Street Journal’s July 9 investigative report, finding none of the locations had lead-contaminated soil. The locations in question are Wappinger Falls, New York, Coal Center, Pennsylvania and West Orange, New Jersey. Verizon said it hired “third-party experts” to collect and…
New York Law Journal: The Wall Street Journal Investigative Series on Lead Cables: A Surprising Swing and Miss, and a Cautionary Tale for the Plaintiffs’ Bar
Faithful readers of the Wall Street Journal should be forgiven if they believed that its recent multi-part series “Lead Legacy – A Wall Street Journal Investigation” revealed a significant new environmental problem that might become the next environmental crisis and start the next wave of tort litigation. After the recent, well-publicized drinking water crises in Flint, Michigan, and…
Telecompetitor: Verizon: No Lead Contamination at Questioned Sites
Verizon has told Representative Pat Ryan (D–NY-18) that three sites with allegedly dangerous decades-old telecom cabling encased with lead are safe. In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon, AT&T and other telcos controlled old lead-sheathed cables on poles, underwater or in the earth that can decay and which, according to the WSJ, may pose a…