The WSJ has been doing a multipart series on lead shielding of phone lines across the US and how lead leeching is impacting the local environment as well as people who worked with the material. I'm curious to hear your own experiences.
Any telecom line workers around here?
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Not a telecom line worker but I haven't seen any lead sheathed cable around here in years. I expect that most of it has been replaced.
I saw a lot more of it back in the 80s.
EDIT: Lead sheathed cable has the problem of requiring air pressure (nitrogen) to keep water out, because the conductors are insulated with pulp (paper). If you've ever seen a tank of nitrogen chained to a telephone pole, they're trying to compensate for leaks between that point and the central office where the nitrogen supply is. I haven't seen any nitrogen tanks chained to telephone poles for many years.
Not worked with it but I thought that was really old sheathing. Like they stopped making new lines with that 50 years ago, that kind of old. Took a tour of a telephone museum the other month and I forget if it mentioned when it fell out of favor.
Lead can be pretty stable, depends on the soil pH.
People have been handling lead for a really long time. Basic safety precautions are required, but, unless if you are boiling the stuff, the way to get it into your blood stream is to ingest it. As in, you rubbed your fingers on the stuff, didn't wash your hands, then licked your fingers. You can't absorb it through the skin from just touching it. Soldering temperatures are too low to vaporize it; OSHA doesn't give soldering two thoughts: fume hoods are about the rosin fumes, not lead fumes.
People who shoot firearms indoors, different problems, the primers often have lead in them, and bullets hitting backstops can create lead dust if I'm not mistaken. So shooters can and have been known to have elevated lead in their blood.
Lead can be pretty stable, depends on the soil pH.
People have been handling lead for a really long time. Basic safety precautions are required, but, unless if you are boiling the stuff, the way to get it into your blood stream is to ingest it. As in, you rubbed your fingers on the stuff, didn't wash your hands, then licked your fingers. You can't absorb it through the skin from just touching it. Soldering temperatures are too low to vaporize it; OSHA doesn't give soldering two thoughts: fume hoods are about the rosin fumes, not lead fumes.
People who shoot firearms indoors, different problems, the primers often have lead in them, and bullets hitting backstops can create lead dust if I'm not mistaken. So shooters can and have been known to have elevated lead in their blood.
PIC (polyethylene insulated cable) was introduced in the 60s, from what I read. I think they continued to make lead sheathed cable for some time beyond that, perhaps until the 80s.
Interesting. I could see them being slow to adopt, when reliability is of the utmost. My father worked a small telco in the 80's and I recall him saying he did see at lead sheathing at least once (I think it was after it was hit with a backhoe).
Cables have been replaced but the old legacy cables which have not been removed if that makes any sense. Here's an article based off the WSJ investigation.
AT&T and Verizon’s ancient lead cables have US lawmakers demanding action
"Corporate irresponsibility": Telcos accused of failing to act on health risks.
arstechnica.com
I think the lead sheathed cable was still used (underground) for extremely high pair count cables even after PIC cable was introduced.
I used to see it (aerial cable) all over surburban Chicago in the 80s. Google street view shows that the places I remember seeing it no longer have it; it's been replaced.
Only place I've seen it since then is in Pennsylvania somewhere near York (and it was in BAD shape, covered with trash bags and what looked like gutter, probably because it was leaking like a sieve), and I saw it on a Google street view on US1 near Alexandria, VA, that section was only a few thousand feet long.
You can tell because the lead sheathed cable appears whitish/gray (almost the same color as CATV hardline with an aluminum sheath), the PIC cable is black.
Additionally, the lead sheathed cable is usually attached to the support strand with cable rings (which are still used for span wire traffic signals; the telco industry doesn't use them anymore). The PIC cable is attached to the strand with lashing wire.
Thank you for info
Additionally, I've heard that most of the people that worked with lead cable and know how to do lead splice cases have long retired, so there's yet another reason for the telcos to get rid of this stuff.
If the aluminum is visible that's technically the outer conductor and the cable has no sheath.
It's referred to as aluminum sheath cable in the industry. The aluminum serves as both the outer conductor and the sheath.
I was a Cable Splicer in Manhattan from 1969 to 1984 working in manholes. When I started, 99.8% of new underground cables were not lead. New splices had lead dutchmen (3 1/2" dia) installed so the job could be finished with a large lead sleeve (usually 6 - 6 1/2" dia.) sealed with molten lead. The biggest joint I ever wiped was a 10 1/2" double "Y". We called them "garbage cans." I was in Trunk Galvo / T Carrier Maintenance so I dealt with lead everyday. The phone company had to pay NYC a fee for every pair of wires underground so when Fiber made it's debut copper disappeared very quickly along with thousands of cables.
There was plenty of lead cable in the backyards going to regular customers but that started changing very quickly when "Cut and Steal" came into fashion in the poor neighborhoods.
Verizon has been taking land line customers off copper and putting them on Fios for quite a few years now. Lead telephone cable is just about gone in NYC.
I have no idea about what's going on across the country but I believe the people who are making these accusations are full of BS.
There was plenty of lead cable in the backyards going to regular customers but that started changing very quickly when "Cut and Steal" came into fashion in the poor neighborhoods.
Verizon has been taking land line customers off copper and putting them on Fios for quite a few years now. Lead telephone cable is just about gone in NYC.
I have no idea about what's going on across the country but I believe the people who are making these accusations are full of BS.
Statements on this issue by the phone company lobby claim that customers are still being served through lead covered cable. That seems really unlikely.
Companies now want absolutely nothing to do with twisted-pair phone lines of any type. The people trained to work on them are not being replaced as they retire.
Companies now want absolutely nothing to do with twisted-pair phone lines of any type. The people trained to work on them are not being replaced as they retire.
My mother’s home still has untouched landline from 1976, no idea what it is, all buried
Never new what those were for. Saw one about 10 years ago.
Anyone that was working on lead-based telco cables is either in a rocking chair or dead.
The people that had petroleum jelly all over them at the end of everyday from working on copper pair telephone cable are all retired today.
The people that had petroleum jelly all over them at the end of everyday from working on copper pair telephone cable are all retired today.
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No they aren't. Verizon still has copper cable splicers on their payroll. One of them was working in my front yard a couple of years ago to fix a 200 pair cable that got hit by a Verizon contractor who was installing conduit for FIOS. He didn't look old enough to be retired now.
We're not there yet, but that is how it always plays out. AT&T and Verizon will spin off the copper line business into new companies that are designed to go bankrupt. The profitable fiber and wireless businesses will remain with the shareholders. (Note that Verizon Wireless has always been a separate company from Verizon.) Then the taxpayers will be saddled with the legacy cost from the bankrupt company. Privatize the profit, socialize the loss, and move on to the next one. Legislators never see this coming because they are paid to look the other way.
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