AT&T Sidesteps Admitting Its Telecom Cables ‘Discharge’ Lead Into Lake Tahoe
AT&T admits it previously operated two telecommunications cables, “portions of which remain in the waters of Lake Tahoe,” said its answer Wednesday (docket 2:21-cv-00073) in U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance’s Aug.…
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20 second amended complaint. The alliance alleges violations of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and of California’s Proposition 65. It seeks an order requiring AT&T to pay civil penalties of $2,500 a day retroactively to one year before the filing of the complaint, and continuing until AT&T "no longer causes lead to be released" from the cables into the waters of Lake Tahoe. AT&T admits that each cable “contains multiple layers of material, some of which serve a protective purpose,” said its answer, steering well clear of any acknowledgment that the cables have toxic-lead components, as the alliance alleges. AT&T admits the cables haven’t been “in operation for years, and that at least one end of one cable has been cut,” it said. The cables were installed and maintained “in conformity with applicable law” at the time, it said. Though denying the existence of “any discharge,” AT&T alleges any discharge of lead from the cables wouldn’t cause “any significant amount of lead to be released into any source of drinking water within the meaning of Proposition 65,” it said.