[HN Gopher] What AT&T and Verizon knew about toxic lead cables f...
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What AT&T and Verizon knew about toxic lead cables for decades
Author : hammock
Score : 167 points
Date : 2023-07-17 14:30 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| h2odragon wrote:
| [flagged]
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Aren't there similar problems with lead covered underground
| electrical cables throughout the US, particularly within large
| city networks?
| beerandt wrote:
| Lead tends to stabilize in-situ in most installations over time
| to be fairly safe and non-reactive.
|
| Messing with it or changing the environmental equilibrium is
| often what what increases risk / makes it a non-negligible risk.
|
| See also:
|
| EPA's embarrassing DC screw-up where replacing chlorine with a
| "safer" alternative caused lead chemical pathways to reverse and
| lead levels to spike: years of deposits into non-lead
| infrastructure -from (previously removed) lead pipes- suddenly
| became unstable and began leaching _back_ into water due to the
| chemistry change. The leadfree water system suddenly had a lead
| problem, because some one at the EPA decided that the chlorine
| system was a bigger problem than it really was.
|
| Especially when it comes to these types of (potential)
| remediation projects, never assume that the unknown unknowns will
| be harmless, or even less risky than the no-build alternative.
| beerandt wrote:
| Separately, the US has a problem in that activism has largely
| become its own industry, existing for the sake of itself more
| than for its founding causes.
|
| When an industry depends on problems to exist, problems will be
| always be found.
|
| When goals and reasons-to-be are accomplished, very few seem
| willing to 'admit' their victory - and give up their self-
| important justification for whatever selfimage they've built on
| top their cause. So the cause is extended or a new one is
| invented.
|
| "In conclusion, further study - and more research funds - is
| needed."
| jujube3 wrote:
| What are you even talking about? What "industry" depends on
| calling attention to lead poisoning? As best as I can tell
| not many people care about issues with lead.
| sclarisse wrote:
| Idk, it seems reasonably obvious that there is activism and
| litigation and nonprofits and bureaucracies all studying
| environmental issues, and these are all operated by people,
| many of whom get more money and attention was a result of
| the concerns they raise. There is some opportunity for a
| conflict of interest.
|
| One question, though, is whether they _take_ that
| opportunity. Another more salient question is whether the
| _Wall Street Journal_ , of all the possible papers, has
| fallen under the influence of such groups.
|
| And it certainly seems as if they've found some people with
| elevated lead levels in blood, and ground and water samples
| that exceed EPA limits.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > When an industry depends on problems to exist, problems
| will be always be found.
|
| If your "industry" is finding the poisons that we human are
| putting into the Earth, then I think it is true that problems
| will always be found.
| Aloha wrote:
| If by no other means than adding things to the list
| constitutes a _poison_ or how much of a given supposed
| _poison_ is safe.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| [dead]
| hammock wrote:
| >Lead tends to stabilize in-situ in most installations over
| time to be fairly safe and non-reactive. Messing with it or
| changing the environmental equilibrium is often what what
| increases risk / makes it a non-negligible risk.
|
| This is also true of heavy metal poisoning in human bodies. The
| treatment for metals poisoning is to ingest chelating agents
| which, in theory, bind to the heavy metals and carry them into
| the bloodstream, where they are then excreted via urine or
| other means. Unfortunately a sometimes side effect of this
| therapy is the unsettling of metals from, e.g. fat stores and
| the relocation of them into the brain, making things worse
| rather than better
| jujube3 wrote:
| > Lead tends to stabilize in-situ in most installations over
| time to be fairly safe and non-reactive.
|
| That didn't happen here. Those lead cables are leaching into
| local surface water and the environment. Although this article
| focuses mainly on the harm to workers.
| rastapasta42 wrote:
| Time to buy telecom stocks?
| Animats wrote:
| Lead cable splicing was pretty bad. Here's the process of
| splicing an underwater cable being installed between San
| Francisco and ... Oakland. This was a big project at the time.
| Watch the cable splicers pouring molten lead over a cable while
| catching the extra lead by holding an asbestos pad underneath,
| around 2:30 into [1].
|
| [1]
| https://archive.org/details/0840_Underwater_Cable_and_Other_...
| MisterTea wrote:
| In addition to telephone, electrical power distribution is still
| accomplished using PILC cable (paper insulated, lead covered.)
| There's tons of it under NYC and it is still manufactured to this
| day. And since the insulation is oil soaked paper, there's a good
| chance the oil is contaminated with PCB's.
|
| Back in high school electrician shop class we had a few sections
| of medium and high voltage distribution and transmission cable
| (The cross sections were neat to look at esp the 130kV 1000 MCM
| that was about 4 inches in diameter). One of which was a 1 foot
| length of PILC partly stripped to show the construction and
| mounted to a wooden base. It sat out in the open on a table
| covered in dust and lead oxide. After touching it our shop
| teacher made sure to tell us to thoroughly wash our hands.
|
| edit: forgot to mention lead water mains that still exist. Family
| friend worked for the DEP and said they liked to "leave the lead
| be" as the harmful oxides were on the outside of the pipe and not
| a major threat to the water within. Disturbing the pipes was said
| to be a larger hazard than leaving them in service.
| quercusa wrote:
| The Flint water crisis was caused by failing to perform
| corrosion control:
|
| In April 2014, because of annual rate increases from the DWSD,
| the Flint City Council voted to join the Karegnondi Water
| Authority (KWA), which would be developing a raw water supply
| pipeline from Lake Huron. The water supply contract with DWSD
| was subsequently terminated, and the Flint water treatment
| plant began treating water from the Flint River on a full-time
| basis and distributing the treated water to residents and other
| customers. When the plant went into full-time operation, the
| Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) did not
| implement corrosion control, as mandated by the LCR. Instead,
| the Flint water treatment plant was allowed to complete two
| six-month monitoring periods without corrosion control and then
| the MDEQ would decide if corrosion control treatment was
| necessary.
|
| https://www.materialsperformance.com/articles/material-selec...
| Solvency wrote:
| Can we start reporting on the fact that literally all small
| airplanes still fly using leaded gas? Live in SoCal? Cool, there
| are hundreds of small Cessna and similar planes flying overhead
| 24/7 just spewing it into the air above you.
| eppp wrote:
| If I recall, the FAA recently approved unleaded for that use.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| You've been able to fly a plane with unleaded fuel for
| decades. See every major airline burning jet fuel.
|
| It won't stop the use of leaded fuel until the FAA bans it,
| which should have happened decades ago. Your airplane can't
| fly without unleaded fuel? Cool! You can stare at it in the
| hangar!
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > You've been able to fly a plane with unleaded fuel for
| decades. See every major airline burning jet fuel.
|
| Jet engines are completely different from the piston
| engines you'll find in general aviation (sans choppers,
| which mostly run on jet engines).
|
| Piston engines need leaded fuel for lubrication as well as
| knock resistance, and deviating from the original
| certification of the engine/plane requires a type-specific
| certification - every model of plane you want to fly that
| was certified with 100LL AvGas needs to be _separately_
| tested if it can fly safely with lead-free AvGas [1].
|
| [1] https://www.flightglobal.com/engines/faa-
| approves-100-octane...
| andrewg wrote:
| JetA-burning piston aircraft exist - almost all Diamonds
| for instance.
| nmhancoc wrote:
| General aviation is a pretty small market. I doubt the
| development costs can be justified. For reference
| Lycoming only switched away from carburetors around 2009,
| plus there's the installed base of old engines being
| serviced.
|
| I do think some European engines have looked at diesel
| though
| shrubble wrote:
| It's a settled matter of law in the USA that you can't
| arbitrarily do that to people's property.
| Spivak wrote:
| It does happen sometimes but yeah, this is why laws are
| usually passed in the manner of "new planes can't use
| leaded fuel."
| [deleted]
| coding123 wrote:
| I specifically decided to buy a property where there are no
| small airports. A lot of them run flight training schools,
| which are super popular because China sends all of its pilots
| to the western US (Oregon, CA, Arizona). If you're near a metro
| (or even some of the smaller towns) you're just hearing zipping
| all day and breathing in the lead.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Having lived directly under the flight path of an airport
| with tons of GA traffic, I never will again. The lead was
| bad, but what was fucking miserable was the pilots who took
| off at fucking dawn EVERY DAY and had to fly 100 ft above my
| apartment. Those planes are loud as fuck when on initial
| climb out from the runway.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I'm still surprised by avgas. It's like aviation is 50 years
| behind.
| bluGill wrote:
| The engines and planes in general aviation are more then 50
| years behind. Most small planes in the air today where made
| before 1980. They have been rebuilt several times, but the
| original manufacturing was decades ago.
| NavinF wrote:
| That's what happens when the FAA makes it extremely
| expensive to get new GA aircraft approved. We're forced to
| fly 50 year old rust buckets, all in the name of safety
| sclarisse wrote:
| This is part of a series that's been running in the WSJ for a
| week now. There are still lead lined cables all over the country,
| with little awareness of the risks they pose; the first article
| in the series discussed cables going past playgrounds and daycare
| centers.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/lead-cables-telecoms-att-toxic-...
| https://archive.is/MA0wG
|
| "Aerial lead cabling runs alongside more than 100 schools with
| about 48,000 students in total. More than 1,000 schools and
| child-care centers sit within half a mile of an underwater lead
| cable, according to a Journal analysis using data from research
| firm MCH Strategic Data."
|
| We took lead out of gas (except general aviation). Everyone who
| buys or rents an older home or even just buys paint at the
| hardware store is reminded of lead in paint. Most are aware of
| lead in pipes, especially where these pipes are present. Yet lead
| levels in children nationwide are still substantially higher than
| they should be given the mitigations that have already been done.
|
| These cables are likely a huge portion of what's left, and almost
| nobody has heard of them. Even when they're right in front of
| your face hanging from a telephone pole.
| chaxor wrote:
| This is just an absolutely awful idea simply due to the weight.
|
| The reason people are trying to get carbon nanotube electricity
| lines in the air is not because 'nano' is a cool word, but
| because they're _really_ light while conducting electricity.
| Lead is, well, quite the opposite of that.
| hammock wrote:
| Carbon nanoparticles might pose their own risk, though my
| intuition suggests the threat is not as immediate or great as
| that from lead
| scrlk wrote:
| It would not surprise me if carbon nanoparticles could act
| in a similar way to asbestos, if inhaled.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Isn't it a problem that carbon is mostly one of the things
| you make nearly every resistor out of, instead of wires?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > This is just an absolutely awful idea simply due to the
| weight.
|
| Buried cables used to be lead jacketed before viable polymers
| suitable for long term use were developed in the modern era.
| DANmode wrote:
| It depends on the local water table, doesn't it?
| myself248 wrote:
| "Within half a mile" is an inane standard. There's no evidence
| that a _buried_ cable leaches lead that far, that's simply
| bonkers. Lead is definitely not something to chew on, but this
| is histrionic fearbait reporting.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > There's no evidence that a _buried_ cable leaches lead that
| far
|
| Well, the question is how much lead leaches out and gets
| transported by rainfall down to groundwater tables from which
| we source our drinking water.
| derefr wrote:
| I understand how lead-lined Roman aqueducts would put lead
| into drinking water -- there's nowhere for the lead to go
| but to stay in the water, since the lead lining is _below_
| the water.
|
| But I'm unclear on how lead that had leached into
| groundwater would remain in groundwater. Shouldn't the
| lead, being heavier than water, drop out of the groundwater
| and get caught up in the soil? Isn't this the primary
| filtering function we expect of soil -- the reason
| aggregate is used as a filtering medium in wastewater
| treatment?
|
| If not, wouldn't you expect to hear about water tables that
| have problematically-high _natural_ levels of this or that
| heavy metal? Wouldn 't you expect that it'd be deadly to
| drink groundwater that had ever flowed through any
| underground ore deposits?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > wouldn't you expect to hear about water tables that
| have problematically-high natural levels of this or that
| heavy metal?
|
| Where I live, I get periodic water quality reports in the
| mail, with the test results for all kinds of different
| contaminants.
|
| The reports always list the _typical source_ of
| contaminants; and naturally-occurring metals in the
| ground is very common.
|
| Interesting artifact: A well near my childhood home has
| unusually high levels of chromium for the town. It's
| believed to be from when someone was running a car repair
| shop near the watershed; and they left some brake drums
| or similar car parts outside.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Virtually everything that dissolves in water is heavier
| than an H2O molecule, and a lot (most?) soluble salts are
| denser than water. If you want an example, table salt
| sinks to the bottom before dissolving. Also, yes, some
| ground waters are naturally high in different metals.
| Before drinking water from a well you drilled you usually
| have to get the well's water tested.
| derefr wrote:
| My assumption in writing the above was that non-soluble
| elemental lead metal (the thing the sheathing is made out
| of, and that Roman aqueducts were made out of, and the
| thing that soil could easily trap and filter out) is the
| "problem" with lead poisoning; while the lead ions in
| lead compounds are mostly safe. Like it is with mercury,
| where mercury amalgams are perfectly fine to use as
| dental fillings, but getting even a little metallic
| mercury past your skin will kill you.
|
| Looking into it, though, apparently lead metal and lead
| ions are both toxic, through independent mechanisms. And
| that the toxicity of e.g. lead-based paint is due to the
| toxicity of lead compounds, rather than the toxicity of
| metallic lead.
|
| Still: is there cause to believe that metallic lead from
| lead sheathing in cables, would react with something in
| the ground to form soluble lead compounds, rather than
| remaining particulate metal and therefore coming to rest
| in the soil? Things don't oxidize underground, right? And
| groundwater is usually pH-neutral enough to not create an
| environment amenable for reduction reactions involving
| e.g. chromium or sulfur, right?
|
| I say this because several people above have mentioned
| that there are _other_ metallic-ion "natural pollutants"
| in groundwater -- but I've still never heard of
| groundwater with high natural lead levels.
| lazide wrote:
| You have mercury all wrong, and lead mostly so.
|
| Elemental mercury is very difficult to absorb, and even
| in vapor form the LD50 is quite high. It typically
| requires extended exposure to even vapor from mercury to
| have any issues. Even a drop of organic mercury on a
| glove (let alone skin) can kill.
|
| Historically, even periodically drinking liquid elemental
| mercury was relatively harmless and didn't poison anyone.
| You'd have to do it _a lot_. The Louis and Clark
| expedition used it for its laxative effects, and it's
| allowed historians to confirm which campsites were theirs
| or not, for instance.
|
| Most compounds and salts of mercury, especially organic
| compounds, are incredibly toxic. [https://emergency.cdc.g
| ov/agent/mercury/mercorgcasedef.asp]
|
| Many of those compounds form when metallic/elemental
| mercury is around certain microorganisms, like those in
| many ponds and lakes, or when man made.
|
| Lead isn't dissimilar. Lead poisoning (or measurable
| uptake) from elemental lead almost always requires
| extended ingestion or inhalation of lead, or
| ingestion/exposure to a salt or compound which allows
| easier intake.
|
| The most common forms of lead poisoning usually involve
| things like habitual smoking or eating while having lead
| dust covered hands, or persistent ingestion of lead
| containing substances (like contaminated water) or
| breathing in of lead contaminated dust.
|
| It takes a surprising amount of persistent exposure,
| unless someone is really stupid. Like doing oxyacetylene
| cutting of lead sheet without PPE, or cleaning a shooting
| range then not washing their hands after.
| LTL_FTC wrote:
| Currently worried about this. My employer asked me to
| help the production team with some assembly of the
| product which involved a good amount of soldering. Turns
| out it's leaded solder and the owner doesn't believe in
| venting the solder smoke to the exterior of the building.
| The tiny fans used are a joke. I'm in software and won't
| be doing this regularly but it's still incredibly
| worrisome as I don't see employees washing their hands
| after handling it so it could be everywhere.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If you're in the US, you might consider dropping a word
| to OSHA.
| teraflop wrote:
| As I understand it, the "solder smoke" produced during
| hand-soldering does not actually contain metallic solder
| itself, except maybe in trace amounts. It primarily
| consists of vaporized organic compounds from the rosin
| flux core of the solder wire.
|
| It's still not good to inhale (chronic exposure can cause
| asthma and other respiratory issues) but it's not really
| an issue of leaded vs. lead-free.
|
| And for what it's worth, I've always anecdotally heard
| that solder _paste_ is what you really want to be worried
| about, rather than solder wire, because it 's much easier
| for small amounts to get smeared onto objects/surfaces
| and contaminate them.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > cleaning a shooting range then not washing their hands
| after
|
| Care to elaborate? Even handling bullets should be no
| more posionus than handling diver weights?
| genmud wrote:
| Also, depending on how the bullets get caught at the
| range (shredded tires vs sand vs steel backstops), they
| tend to produce a lots of fine lead dust[1].
|
| [1] - https://youtu.be/QfDoQwIAaXg
| lazide wrote:
| If you wash your hands with soap and water before
| sticking them in your mouth after any of these
| activities, you'll be fine. If you don't, I wouldn't
| recommend making whatever it was a habit.
|
| If you handled a lot of powdered/pulverized lead powder,
| and then stick your hands in your mouth and lick your
| fingers - it could conceivably cause a measurable body
| burden of lead even if you did it once, maybe. So don't
| do that.
| lalopalota wrote:
| "not washing their hands" being the key part. it isn't
| dangerous to handle diver weights or clean up a shooting
| range. if the traces aren't cleaned off your hands before
| touching the face/eyes, eating, smoking cigarettes, etc,
| the lead will get into the body and cause problems.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > If not, wouldn't you expect to hear about...
|
| I've certainly heard about such:
|
| https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-
| resources/science/a...
|
| > lead, being heavier than water, drop out of the
| groundwater
|
| Sodium chloride is over twice as heavy as water, and yet
| doesn't 'drop out' of it.
| anthonyu wrote:
| A bit of a bad analogy as, in water, the sodium and
| chloride are not bound together; rather, the ions are
| separately distributed throughout and wouldn't have the
| same density that they would have in a dry, crystal,
| ionically bound form.
| retrac wrote:
| Elemental lead is fairly reactive - it forms a number of
| compounds, some of which are soluble in water. Dissolved
| compounds may precipitate but they don't always "fall
| out" simply because the elements in them are heavier.
|
| > you expect to hear about water tables that have
| problematically-high natural levels of this or that heavy
| metal?
|
| That does happen. Cadmium is probably the most common
| culprit.
|
| > In groundwater in Pakistan, mean Cd concentrations of
| 10 mg/L originated from Jurassic sulfide-bearing
| sedimentary rocks (Naseem et al., 2014). In Germany,
| background Cd concentrations in groundwater range from
| 0.11 mg/L in loess aquifers below arable land to 2.7 mg/L
| in sandy aquifers below forested lands [1]
|
| The limit in the USA and EU is 5 ug/L. It's quite
| possible to drill a well with natural cadmium levels
| above the generally accepted safe level. Lead, arsenic,
| chromium, barium, and copper are other common culprits.
| In particular, chronic arsenic poisoning from naturally-
| occurring arsenic in ground water and aquifers affects
| many millions of people around the world.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7147761/
| sclarisse wrote:
| Note that the half-mile statistic is connected to underwater
| cables, not buried cables. It is certainly an overcount, but
| it is probably not trivial to assess the local hydrology and
| the extent to which children's play areas might be exposed to
| such water.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _it is probably not trivial to assess the local hydrology
| and the extent to which children's play areas might be
| exposed to such water._
|
| Especially since there are thousands and thousands of
| schools in America that get their water from wells.
|
| It doesn't seem overly-cautious to wonder about lead placed
| under a water course 50 years to a century ago finding its
| way into the groundwater supply a half-mile away.
| gruez wrote:
| >It doesn't seem overly-cautious to wonder about lead
| placed under a water course 50 years to a century ago
| finding its way into the groundwater supply a half-mile
| away.
|
| At that point wouldn't it be so diluted that it's
| basically indistinguishable from background levels?
| prewett wrote:
| Hopefully that wondering would lead to testing the water
| to see whether there is actually a problem.
| toast0 wrote:
| The conspiracy theorist in me wonders why the telcos want us to
| know there's lead in the wires now.
|
| Maybe so they have an excuse to tear the wires down and end
| services in areas they don't care to service anymore.
|
| Maybe so they can get more subsidies to run fiber that they'll
| promise to connect people with, but won't ever need to account
| for.
| alexzhues wrote:
| The original WSJ report used soil samples underneath old
| power lines to determine that there were still lead-sheathed
| cables leaking into the environment. And based on the
| responses from telco's legal/PR departments (ie denial of
| health risks), this isn't a story they wanted to leak.
| icedchai wrote:
| Yes, they probably want subsidies to remove the cable. Around
| here (VZ territory), they leave it to rot on the poles. Most
| of the area is on fiber now. If I walk around the block, I
| see broken copper cables, wires hanging out, squirrels
| nesting in the junctions, etc.
| hammock wrote:
| >Yes, they probably want subsidies to remove the cable
|
| There's no way it's getting removed in the next 50 years
| without a subsidy so maybe this is...OK?
| ipaddr wrote:
| subsidy or environmental cleanup fee
| icedchai wrote:
| I'd tend to agree, especially if they can put more fiber
| in place at the same time.
| hanniabu wrote:
| They've probably reached a point where they're failing at a
| higher rate and need replacing. Leaking this info would get
| the government involved and the telcos can probably get the
| taxpayers to foot the bill replacing all of them.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| It's certainly _possible_ that this situation might sway
| Congress to pass some sort of lead wiring replacement act.
| DropInIn wrote:
| Beyond gross how often citizens are subsidizing the
| businesses that rob Peter to pay Paul... We should be
| forcing the profiteers (shareholders) to repay it and be
| imprisoning the thieves, not paying Peter (remediation) for
| them.
| Aloha wrote:
| The cables are near end of life and unlikely to be replaced
| at all, because the entirety of the copper network and its
| associated hardware is also near end of life.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Given the myriad forethought, procedures, standards, and
| quality checks with which AT&T handled their network
| (pre-divestiture) I'd bet a lot telco cable plant is
| nowhere near "end of life".
|
| It's just at "end of profitable life".
| toast0 wrote:
| I mean, it was probably all in great shape 40 years ago.
| But 40 years of missed opportunities to replace cabling
| failing quality checks (if they were even done) is
| probably taking its toll. I know of many anecdotes of
| poor quality lines where trouble tickets end up with a
| pair swap which works for several months, and then you
| need to swap to another pair. There's only so many spare
| pairs, but the silver (lead?) lining is that enough
| customers leave that you can take their good pairs to
| serve the remaining customers. I've personally
| experienced the poor line records that mean connecting a
| new customer might disconnect an old customer, leading to
| a service call down the street.
| Aloha wrote:
| There are also just so few customers left too.
|
| For me as a phone nerd who would prefer to have a
| landline, but no longer have a good justification for it,
| and frankly I'm unsure if I even have a good drop anymore
| to my house (its not had service since 2010 - before I
| owned it).
|
| I keep thinking I should reach out to AT&T and try to
| order services, but I just never quite get around to it.
| toast0 wrote:
| Be prepared for sticker shock too. I recently set up my
| MIL with a CenturyLink landline here in WA, and it's
| $60/month. I could save a couple bucks a month if I
| declined long distance, but not many afaik. My California
| landline was less than $15/month with taxes when I turned
| it off, that was with no long distance and metered local
| calling (which was fine for me, I mostly wanted it for
| incoming calls and calls to toll free customer service).
| Aloha wrote:
| Oh yeah, I looked up the rate catalog, 50+ a month with
| unbundbleable LD
| Aloha wrote:
| As someone who is well versed in that, its at the end of
| its _practical_ life.
|
| Both PIC and Lead Cable pinhole overtime, the life of
| areal (either PIC or Leaded) cable is 30-50 years, the
| life of buried cable is 50-90 - all of this cable exceeds
| that point, and must be replaced.
|
| The phone switches that are connected to the cable are
| all near or over 40 years old, and closer to 45-50 years
| old in design, the spares pool is surprisingly healthy
| (because so many switches have been decommed) but the
| software that runs of these switches is also near end of
| life - and in the sustaining engineering phase of its
| lifecycle.
|
| There may be a life for some copper cable, but it will be
| literally the last mile. Which is a lot smaller in scope
| than what we have now.
| bnjms wrote:
| Can tax payers also take ownership of the physical plant
| and sell access like we do to public airwaves? States
| rights should allow at least some states to do the right
| thing.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The telco wiring in my area (Western Ohio) is a mess. I see
| pedestals with the cans broken open and splices exposed all
| over. The ILEC in my area (Frontier) is bankrupt, but the
| non-bankrupt ILECs in surrounding areas are doing no better
| with basic maintenance.
|
| I get angry when I see it, thinking about the history of free
| easements, tax abatement, subsidy, and other favorable
| treatment that the telcos received, historically, and how
| they can leave this perfectly serviceable infrastructure to
| rot.
| simfree wrote:
| Copper facilities across the USA are past their design
| life. The cables themselves might be usable (if water
| intrusion has not happened, which is a big if), but the
| splice cases, splices and hardware on either end of the
| cable is often not doing well.
|
| Frontier bought assets from Verizon knowing full well they
| were going to ride this infrastructure until it was
| worthless while investing as little as possible. It is no
| surprise the copper plant has rotted on the poles, they
| treated their copper and fiber plants like trash in nearly
| every part of their territory.
| Aloha wrote:
| Frontier did actually surprisingly invest lots of money
| into their copper plant, but the copper plant had been
| all but ignored from the the point Bell Atlantic bought
| GTE.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Telco wiring is decaying here in Western PA; signal quality
| and reliability gets worse every year. Customer service is
| nonexistent, "why won't you switch to VOIP/4G?"
| bob1029 wrote:
| I am strongly on board with the subsidy theory. This wouldn't
| be the first time.
|
| Looking at what this is doing to the stock price of AT&T adds
| another potential item to your list:
|
| Hedge funds pushing well-timed narratives to their benefit.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| [flagged]
| nashashmi wrote:
| One day we will also focus on why live electricity is running
| right in front of schools and sidewalks where children are
| walking to and from school.
| MrVitaliy wrote:
| GA is getting rid of lead too -- https://www.faa.gov/about/init
| iatives/avgas#:~:text=The%20mo....
| downrightmike wrote:
| Actually little remediation has gone on, as it would cost
| billions to solve the problem and keep kids safe, and not many
| in government want to actually solve the issue. The only thing
| that has happened is pretty much the removal of lead from paint
| and gas and let nature bury the rest.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| > Everyone who buys or rents an older home or even just buys
| paint at the hardware store is reminded of lead in paint. Most
| are aware of lead in pipes, especially where these pipes are
| present. Yet lead levels in children nationwide are still
| substantially higher than they should be given the mitigations
| that have already been done.
|
| Things like food contamination can be tricky to stop, but we're
| getting better at it. I get amazon alerts when batches of a
| food I buy from whole foods were found to be contaminated.
| That's only happened once, but it turned out to be okay.
|
| Worth noting that the mitigations you mentioned do work,
| because many kids live in the environment you describe but do
| not have elevated levels of lead.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Just wait until journalists figure out we used lead extensively
| in plumbing...
|
| Edit: I meant that we have bare lead pipes in the ground along
| with water being sent through them. I also think there was lead
| used in solder on copper pipes until the 70s or something like
| that. Surely these are more likely reasons for higher lead
| accumulations than (poorly) insulated lead wires in the ground?
|
| Lead alloy was also used as the primary electronics solder, and
| of course in gas and paint in higher quantities so I really was
| getting the feeling these articles are drawing weird conclusions
| that telephone cables were the cause of the lead they are
| finding.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Just wait until journalists figure out we used lead
| extensively in plumbing..._
|
| I guess you haven't read a newspaper in the last 70 years.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| They probably were too busy worrying about the lead type at
| the printers...
| chickenbittle wrote:
| I believe plumbers used plumbum.
| no_wizard wrote:
| immediately made me think of this package I used to use when
| I did Python development
|
| https://plumbum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
| elzbardico wrote:
| Unless you are a civil engineer or an activist, probably the
| reason you know about lead plumbing is because journalists
| extensively wrote about it for decades.
|
| Yes, journalism is not perfect, sometimes they err
| catastrophically, but let's not discount all the good things
| good journalists have done and are still doing.
| madengr wrote:
| [dead]
| dahfizz wrote:
| In related news: ATT stock is seriously on sale right now
| bob1029 wrote:
| I've been taking really big scoops out of the free ice cream
| bucket all day.
|
| Bad news is the best news when you are in it for the long haul.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Wait, wait, hold the phone:
|
| > Once you use a soldering iron and you begin to melt it, then
| you begin to get gaseous lead and that can be inhaled and that's
| more of an exposure problem. So the question would be, in a case
| like that, are they properly protected when and if that lead is
| mobilized?
|
| At normal temperatures, that's Flux, not lead. "Gaseous lead?"
| singlow wrote:
| Maybe they really mean aerosolized particulate lead?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Perhaps, but is generally accepted that as long as you aren't
| soldering at ludicrous temperatures, the quantities are very
| small.
| rolandog wrote:
| Well, we thought the same thing about aluminum [0].
|
| [0]: https://hero.epa.gov/hero/index.cfm/reference/details/
| refere... "Exposure, bioavailability, distribution and
| excretion of aluminum and its toxicological relevance to
| humans"
| tristor wrote:
| When I was taking electronics training, my soldering
| instructor told me most of the lead exposure was that
| people used to lick the tip of their soldering iron before
| starting heating it up, and this exposed them to lead. Now
| most people don't do that, but older solderers are a
| little... off, if you've ever met any. Rosin flux fumes are
| also bad and you should definitely be working under a fume
| hood if you do any significant amounts of soldering, even
| at home.
| ip26 wrote:
| On the other hand, we keep finding deleterious effects from
| smaller and smaller lead exposure levels.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| How would it become aerosolised?
| sokoloff wrote:
| They might mean that, but they'd still be wrong. Soldering is
| done around 75-100degC lower than temperatures where lead is
| anything other than melted in meaningful quantities. There is
| ingestion risk of lead residue on fingers (which is the
| reason why eating and smoking is prohibited around soldering
| stations), but very low inhalation risk.
| mk_stjames wrote:
| It's completely an incorrect statement and this has been
| studied at great lengths any place there is molten lead / lead
| alloys. At normal atmospheric pressure, lead does not boil
| until over 1700 degrees C. These people constantly mistake
| melting point with boiling point. Unless you have very low
| partial pressures, there is no lead being gassed off when you
| melt lead at normal liquid lead temperatures.
|
| When people 'smell' something when soldering or pouring molten
| lead, the are smelling aeromatics that are gassing off the
| materials, not lead particles suspended in air.
|
| The overwhelming danger, and the reason so many people who did
| work with lead back in the day have high blood levels of lead,
| is simple contact via their hands with the materials. This guy
| was likely picking up lead lines, lead ingots to melt, leaded
| solder all day and then not washing his hands before eating
| lunch, or rubbing his eyes, etc.
|
| In rare cases dust with lead particles could have been inhaled
| but this is even pretty rare unless they were literally belt
| sanding lead alloy metals in an enclosed space.
| mlyle wrote:
| > At normal atmospheric pressure, lead does not boil until
| over 1700 degrees C.
|
| This argument is fallacious. It is not 100C in my house, but
| water is evaporating and water vapor is in the air; the air
| is 40% saturated with water vapor.
|
| The vapor pressure of lead is pretty low at typical soldering
| temperatures, though.
| hammock wrote:
| Notwithstanding the vapor pressure, there are other ways
| non-boiling lead can make it into the air.
|
| Lead-core candlewicks are well studied and put tons of lead
| into the air as the candle burns at 500C or less
| [deleted]
| ghouse wrote:
| The CDC believes that: "Lead fumes are produced during metal
| processing when metal is heated or soldered."
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/lead/workerinfo.htm
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I am admittedly talking about electrical soldering, which the
| person quoted was also referring to, but there are different
| kinds.
|
| You would need to set your solder gun to about (edit 750, not
| 1100) degrees Fahrenheit to begin truly vaporizing the lead.
| Which, some soldering irons are capable of, but lead solder's
| lower melting point of about 400 degrees makes the risk low.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30629580
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| The CDC believes a lot of fairly bonkers stuff that does not
| match up to reality.
|
| If you heated solder up to the point that lead was boiling
| off, your circuit board would be on fire.
|
| You cannot get lead poisoning from using leaded solder.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| I mean if you start licking it or chewing it you might, but
| normal usage just wash your hands afterward and you're
| fine.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| You'd have to eat a lot of solder. Metallic lead reacts
| with fuck all, basically, which is why it's such a good
| material for things like roof flashing. It doesn't even
| react particularly with the hydrochloric acid in your
| stomach, producing only lead chloride (which will make
| its way out of your body fairly quickly) and hydrogen gas
| (not enough to do anything fun if you burp while smoking
| a cigarette, but let's not take chances eh). Metallic
| lead is about as bioavailable as sand.
|
| No no, if you want to get lead into your system you've
| got to really try quite hard. Taking some lead and mixing
| it with tin won't get the job done, oh no, not even a
| little bit. You're going to want to make it into an
| organic salt, maybe by welding on a lovely big acetate
| and then getting that into your stomach.
|
| Now why would you want to do a thing like that?
|
| Well, you might be an ancient Roman, with a fondness for
| "defrutum", a sweet sticky confection made by boiling
| soured wine and grapes in a lead pot until all the water
| is driven off. The acetic acid rips lead out like
| nobody's business and gets well and truly stuck together.
| Oh, and it tastes really sweet too, this lead acetate,
| which is just the thing to liven up any Roman party if
| the wine's gone a bit funny in the sun.
|
| Now you've got a lovely big sugar that your digestive
| system will happily squish into your sensitive tissues,
| where it'll break up and be on its way leaving a big fat
| lead atom right there with nothing to bind to, until it
| finds something. Oh hey, you know that sugars - even with
| a great big lead atom weighing them down - cross the
| blood-brain barrier just fine, right? You couldn't design
| a better way to get lead poisoning.
|
| Now toss in some ergot mould because you won't eat the
| local wheat because everyone is going mad from something
| and it must be those wily locals poisoning you so you
| only eat rye shipped over from Rome in mouldy sacks, and
| pretty soon - between the brain damage from lead acetate
| and the hallucinogenic mould - you're ready to turn
| horses into senators, and tell your soldiers to blunder
| into midgie-infested marshes in the North of Scotland
| where they sink out of sight never to be seen again.
|
| Lovely.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| I encourage everyone to read this series. It's fantastic
| reporting from the last great newspaper, with beautiful site
| design and a well-woven narrative.
| dboreham wrote:
| I read the article. This seems to be about a former lineman who
| had a high blood lead level in the 1980s, and also a study where
| line workers doing soldering were found to have high lead levels
| in their blood.
|
| Reading this, my first and biggest question is : how did the lead
| get into their blood?
|
| Having spent ~20 years soldering in the electronics industry on a
| daily basis I had always assumed that lead isn't getting into
| your body unless you ingest it. There are ways to ingest lead
| that we know about : flaking lead paint becomes dust and can be
| breathed in; lead compounds from burned gasoline can be breathed
| in; lead in water that has traveled through lead pipes (and
| possibly copper pipes soldered with lead) can be drunk.
|
| But how do you ingest solid or liquid lead? Disappointing the
| article never addressed this. It seems the authors heard "worked
| with lead" and "lead in blood" and just said "yeah that seems
| obvious".
|
| Wouldn't we see very high levels of lead poisoning in plumbers?
| (before the move away from lead solder they were heating the
| stuff with a blowtorch, often in cramped unventilated
| conditions). Were studies done to eliminate the possibility that
| the people above ingested lead in some other way?
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Lead solder turns into lead oxide fumes which get absorbed into
| your blood through your lungs.
|
| https://warwick.ac.uk/services/healthsafetywellbeing/guidanc...
|
| Plumbers don't do much soldering and use very little solder
| when they do. And lead solder has been banned in any pipe that
| carries drinking water since the 80s.
| huthuthike wrote:
| I think this is unlikely to happen at typical soldering
| temperatures. The lead vaporization point is over 3000
| degrees F.
|
| https://ehs.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/EHS-0167.pdf
| Aurornis wrote:
| You don't need to vaporize lead to form lead oxide.
|
| > https://ehs.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/EHS-0167.pdf
|
| The first page of this link you shared mentions lead oxide:
|
| > During the soldering process in the form of lead filler
| metals, lead oxide fumes are formed and excessive exposure
| to lead oxide fumes can result in lead poisoning.
| dboreham wrote:
| It also says:
|
| "Because of the relatively low temperatures in electronic
| soldering, fumes from these metal constituents themselves
| are not normally a concern"
| pessimizer wrote:
| > are not normally a concern
|
| Seems like a squirrely way of saying that it might be
| dangerous, but nobody has been inclined to check.
| dboreham wrote:
| > Plumbers don't do much soldering
|
| Today no. But in the past of course they did. Every house has
| 1/2" and 3/4" copper pipe with sweated solder joints. At
| least 10's of them in each house, if not 100 or more.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Plumbers don't do much soldering and use very little solder
| when they do.
|
| You can also use silver solder on copper.
| dboreham wrote:
| > lead oxide fumes which get absorbed into your blood through
| your lungs
|
| Ok, but if this happens wouldn't it be easy to run a study to
| show a correlation between working in solder-exposure
| occupations and accumulated blood lead level?
|
| There are millions of workers who would have been exposed in
| this way (e.g. me), not just a few folks working for big-bad-
| AT&T.
| krisoft wrote:
| > there are millions of workers who would have been exposed
| in this way (e.g. me)
|
| Good suggestion. Sounds like you can add a new data point.
| How are your blood lead levels?
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| > I had always assumed that lead isn't getting into your body
| unless you ingest it.
|
| If this were true, would leaded gasoline have been an issue?
| algas wrote:
| Leaded gasoline is an issue because it's a very bioavailable
| form of lead. It contains tetraeythyl lead, which is
| extremely volatile and likes to absorb into your cells.
|
| Solid lead, on the other hand, is much more inert. The main
| danger of working with elemental lead is breathing in dust if
| you're grinding it.
| thomas_ma wrote:
| I've been following this series. It seems like the journalists
| are trying to make a scandal where there really isn't one. I
| don't see how buried cables if left undisturbed are really an
| issue at all. The ones in the water maybe, but even there how
| much lead can a single cable really leach into water such that it
| rises to an unhealthy level? Maybe the ones strung on poles are
| an issue, but even then--how much is lead really going to flake
| off an intact cable? Remember that in many parts of the country
| we still have lead water pipes and tons of lead-painted surfaces.
| What's the relative risk of these cables compared to, say, houses
| that kids live in that have accessible lead paint surfaces?
|
| It does seem reasonable to ask that if a lead cable is overhead
| on poles and not in use anymore it should be pulled down. In
| general we shouldn't leave a ton of abandoned infrastructure up
| in the air on poles.
|
| I can believe there are health issues for telco workers who
| historically worked with lead cables, and the telcos absolutely
| need to protect their current workforce from lead if they are
| regularly working around and disturbing this old infrastructure.
| CPLX wrote:
| Fishing weights come to mind, as do tire/wheel balancing
| weights.
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| On the topic of relative risk, millions of Americans spend time
| at firing ranges breathing in aerosolized lead and covering
| themselves in lead dust. They of course wash their clothing in
| the same washing machine that launders their family's clothing.
|
| Hunted meat contains a detectable level of lead, and pigs fed
| lead-hunted venison have a detectable rise in blood-lead levels
| within days. [1]
|
| So a sub-group of the population regularly and deliberately
| exposes itself to quite a bit of lead. It's the largest risk
| factor for high blood levels in children. [2]
|
| Seems like a potential problem. Might be worth switching to
| lead-free ammunition and considering what effect these decades
| of selective lead exposure may have had on our communities.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669501/
|
| [2] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/higher-rates-
| of-f...
| Vecr wrote:
| You should probably wear a P100 elastomeric respirator when
| firing guns and have a Nomex flight suit or something you
| wear only at the range and wash separately. I don't think a
| lot of people do it though.
| wahern wrote:
| It's not mentioned in those two sources, but almost all
| firearm propellant primers contain lead as an additive. And
| to make matters worse, it's these exhaust gases that end up
| all over your hands and face.
|
| I didn't know this until I took my kids to a shooting range
| in Reno. Before going I had read warnings to make sure to
| wash their hands afterward, but it was nuts how much residue
| ended up on our hands after shooting only a single box of
| rounds; and given the feel of it, likely heavily laced with
| lead or other metals. I don't think I'd ever take my kids to
| a gun range again unless I brought my own gun (with well-
| maintained parts) and used lead-free ammunition--most
| importantly lead-free primers.
|
| AFAIU it's much easier to find non-leaded bullets than non-
| leaded primers, though neither is very popular. Until very
| recently all the discourse on lead exposure and contamination
| seems to have been focused on the bullet itself.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| " Until very recently all the discourse on lead exposure
| and contamination seems to have been focused on the bullet
| itself."
|
| Not without reason. Animals hunted with lead bullets often
| leave lead fragments in the natural environment via gut
| piles (if recovered) or the carcass itself (if not
| recovered).
|
| Lead poisoning is one of the leading causes for death for
| carrion birds (who eat the carcasses/gut piles) - such as
| the California Condor. Because of this, wildlife
| preservation groups - like the Peregrine Fund - have been
| vocal proponents of eliminating lead bullets.
| madengr wrote:
| [dead]
| whatshisface wrote:
| Unless you're in the Mojave a buried cable is, so to speak, "in
| the water..." what do you think roots are there to do?
| Aloha wrote:
| As someone who has spent a majority of his career in Telecom, I
| think the risk is wildly overstated.
|
| First - only 20-60% of the cable in the wild is lead (depending
| on the locality, and age of construction), from the mid to late
| 60's on, PIC (or other similar plastic covered cable) was
| installed. Also, as capacity was added in between 1980 and 2000,
| lead cable was removed from service over time.
|
| Second - Yes, You're gonna get exposed to lead _working_ in the
| field on _wired_ telecom, I have some measure of exposure, lead
| is not good - but its a risk to _employees_ who work on the
| legacy wired plant.
|
| "Shalini Ramachandran: I talked to a number of women who worked
| in AT&T central offices doing lead soldering work, connecting
| lead sheathed cables from the outside with the internal central
| office machinery. They actually showed gloves with the fingertips
| cut off because they had to do sort of small, intricate work to
| melt the solder with a soldering iron. So, they describe
| breathing in those fumes. They're not being sort of fans or
| exhaust around and feeling headaches often every day coming home
| from work and gastrointestinal issues, nausea, constipation,
| infertility issues, miscarriages. One woman had developed kidney
| cancer and had to have a kidney removed."
|
| Though I see one glaring issue with the way the mention things
| here - by the time a cable reached the main frame of a CO, they
| were stripped from their sheath - yes they wore fingerless gloves
| because you needed to be able to wrap the fine copper wire around
| the lug on the frame, and then solder it with an iron who's tip
| is roughly the size of a human thumb. That wire though is copper,
| and the wire from the field was on the back side of the frame,
| not the front side where the regular work was done to run
| jumpers. That said, the solder users was lead based.
|
| I have no doubt AT&T studied blood lead levels among employees
| (AT&T had a how-to document on _sweeping_ ), they had a document
| for every purpose, and studied every aspect of their operations.
| Those studies were done just before we understood how harmful
| lead is, it was known to be not good, but not how bad even _safe_
| levels of lead could be for humans.
|
| Third - while there is a risk to the general public, its
| _generally_ infinitesimally small - meaning there is probably
| more lead in the soil from cars going by for 40-50 years with
| leaded gasoline, than there is from the buried lead cable
| underground, or the areal lead cable overhead on the poles.
|
| Fourth - Most of this plant is either going to be abandoned or
| replaced within 20ish years. Copper last mile is a declining
| business, even AT&T (nee SBC) is moving to a FTTP from a FTTN
| architecture. Meaning outside of some remediation costs, removing
| it from the ground and/or poles will be enough to solve this.
| josh_carterPDX wrote:
| One only needs to go into a Central Office to know how at risk
| you are for any number of toxic chemicals. The more shocking part
| of this is that there aren't more studies that link cancer among
| telecom engineers that work closely in Central Offices and around
| legacy telecom infrastructure.
|
| Having been a former lineman at PacBell (yes, I'm old), I can
| tell you that there should be no surprise when you're working in
| old buildings, with old legacy systems, in a building with zero
| windows.
| Aloha wrote:
| Most of the old phone people I'm aware of lived long, healthy,
| productive lives, often living many decades beyond retirement.
| Those who did not, in my own personal experience, dont really
| have a single cause of death.
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