Nonprofit reaches settlement with AT&T over 8 miles of cable leaching lead into Lake Tahoe

LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. - Eight miles of leaded cable weighing an approximated 150,000 pounds abandoned at the bottom of Lake Tahoe will have to be removed after a settlement agreement was finalized last week.

Divers discovered the abandoned cables in 2012 as they were removing trash from the bottom of Lake Tahoe. That discovery led to years of work, first to discover what the cables were, who they belonged to, and what they were doing to the lake.

The magnitude and impact of the cable cannot be understated. The discovery of the cable inspired the foundation of Below the Blue.

Seth Jones, the co-founder of Below the Blue, said they took a sample from the cable and assayed it at their lab in San Diego. It was leaching toxic lead into Lake Tahoe, so they then started contacting people to find out that telephone company, Pacific Bell (now AT&T) put the cable down decades ago and it was abandoned.

PacBell switched to fiber optic phone cables over 30 years ago and abandoned the old cables at the bottom of the lake. The cables contain approximately three pounds of lead per foot and extend along the western shore of Lake Tahoe from Baldwin Beach to Rubicon Bay, including across the mouth of Emerald Bay.

Jones is underwater often, both with his nonprofit and then through his business Marine Taxonomic Services. He has conducted underwater scientific work in Tahoe for nearly a decade including work on Asian clams. The underwater environmental consulting company works on studies, dredging, offshore disposal of sewage, marine mammal work, and other tasks in the ocean, rivers, lakes - any bodies of water.

With Below the Blue co-founder Monique Rydel Fortner, Jones says they have always done clean-up in the water when not working. When the company was working on the Asian clam project in Emerald Bay they had a lot of days off so spent the time diving and cleaning up with their crew.

"We took out truckloads every day out of the lake," said Jones of what they found at the bottom of the lake. They remove construction debris and are still working on getting old vessels out.

"Any trash coming out is a good thing," said Jones of all who are working on removing things out of Lake Tahoe.

Jones connected with the non-profit California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) who brought suit under federal law and California’s Proposition 65 to get the cable removed. The settlement is a step in the right direction, but the risks to the environment won’t be mitigated until the cables are out. The agreement states AT&T has to remove the leaded telecommunications cable by 2022 as well as cover all costs for permitting and proper disposal.

It's not the only cable at the bottom of the lake either, said Jones.

"The settlement is awesome, and we want to thank AT&T for settling and agreeing to the cleanup," said Jones. "There are numerous ways they could still pull out."

If that happened Jones said they would go to court again.

"Time is of the essence, its leaching lead," added Jones. "All agencies know about it and they've been working behind the scenes trying to figure it out."

Signage dates to the original use of the cables as early as the 1930s. Testing has confirmed the presence of lead, with conservative estimates of over 60 tons. At the time of placement of the cables, the long-term impacts of such metals in water were not well understood.

“Now that the risks of such contamination are known, it is unfathomable to continue exposing Lake Tahoe’s residents and millions of visitors to potential harm,” said Jones.

Jones lives about 75 percent of the time in South Lake Tahoe, with the rest of the time split between their office in San Diego and a home in Oregon.