What Happened
In January 2024, the business manager for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 2324, in Springfield, Massachusetts, asked NIOSH to conduct a Health Hazard Evaluation focusing on telecom employees. He published NIOSH’s final report on May 19, 2025. It states, “[c]urrently, the administrative and [personal protective equipment] controls in place to prevent lead exposure in the workplace are not sufficient to prevent lead exposure.”
The most significant—and disturbing—finding involved technicians who regularly enter manholes to replace decades-old lead-sheathed telecom cables with new fiber optic cables. These old cables are effectively a lead pipe surrounding copper wires. To remove the cable, a technician cuts it in one manhole (referred to as “uphill”) while another pulls it through to the “downhill” manhole where the person cuts it into manageable segments and hands those to another technician outside.
A technician in the downhill manhole was exposed to 55 µg/m3 of lead for 4.7 hours with an 8-hour time weighted average of 32 µg/m3, slightly over OSHA’s action level. The technicians in the uphill manholes were exposed to 6.9 to 14 µg/m3 over a similar duration of work. The workers wore protective clothing and gloves but not an N-95 respirator.
For context, the OSHA action level was set in the 1990s. It is woefully outdated because it does not reflect the scientific evidence that show a causal connection of adult lead exposure and premature cardiovascular disease (CVD) death as well as harmful effects to the brain and kidneys at much lower levels of lead exposure than allowed by OSHA. Last year, CalOSHA updated its lead worker protection standard, setting an action level of 2 µg/m3 averaged over 8 hours. EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for lead is 0.15 µg/m3 averaged over 3 months. It was updated in 2008 and last reviewed in 2016, before the evidence of premature CVD death at very low exposures became compelling.
The startling number was 30,000 parts per million (ppm) of lead in the soil at the bottom of the dry downhill manhole after the work was finished—that is 3% lead. In contrast, the levels in the uphill manhole were 170 and 530 ppm. NIOSH did not collect sediment samples before the work started.
All technicians, including those handling the lead pipes outside the manhole, had lead on their hands that could result in ingestion or, worse, they could take home the lead on their hands, clothes and shoes where their families might be exposed. Routine hand washing only partially reduce lead levels. One post-work hand wipe sample had 83 µg of lead. Lead was also in their company vehicles and reusable tools.
NIOSH reported that 42 workers had blood lead level (BLL) test results, with seven over 5 µg/dL, the level NIOSH’s benchmark for elevated BLL and is associated with premature deaths from cardiovascular disease, decreased renal function, and, in pregnant people, is associated with reduce fetal growth. One technician had a BLL of 35 µg/dL. For context, California’s requires employers to develop a written plan for employees’ with BLLs of 10 µg/dL or more to reduce and maintain levels,
Why It Matters
There are more than 225,000 miles lead-sheathed telecom cables across the country, hanging between telephone poles, laid across the beds of rivers and lakes, and buried under the ground.1 Thousands of the industry’s employees are likely handling these cables every day in communities across the country.
Where the work is being conducted in California, the state’s new standard requires that telecom companies do much more to protect their workers. The rest of the country has the OSHA standard.2
Recognizing that OSHA’s lead standard is woefully outdated, as we reported in a December blog, CDC’s Lead Exposure Prevention Advisory Committee (LEPAC) found that the risk from adult lead exposure “is on par with that of other prominent cardiovascular risk factors, such as elevated cholesterol, smoking, and hypertension, that have been the focus of extensive public health concern.” LEPAC’s draft report made 16 groundbreaking recommendations that include:
- Emphasizing the cardiovascular disease risk in preventive health policies and communications by taking decisive and consequential actions when adult blood lead levels are at or above 10 µg/dL.
- Using new California OSHA standards as a model for feasible health protection because the federal standards fail to protect workers.
- Encouraging occupational physicians to exercise their discretionary authority to recommend medical removal and other protective measures at blood lead levels lower than OSHA limits.
- Eliminating all unnecessary workplace and commercial uses of lead where substitution of safer alternative materials is possible and feasible.
An EPA analysis shows the cardiovascular disease risk is particularly significant for exposures between 40 and 60 years of age, the average age of the technicians in the manholes.
Our Take
Companies should implement the LEPAC recommendations and follow CalOSHA’s updated standards, even if not in California.
We are particularly concerned that the high lead levels found in the soil in the manhole suggest that the patina of lead that forms on the old cables is released when disturbed. This reinforces the findings by Dr. Shiel at Oregon State University that cables hanging between telephone poles in Portland appeared to be releasing lead dust into the air, perhaps when disturbed by movement or by rain.
Based on this risk and the reality that most of the lead-sheathed telecom cables are not actively being used, NIOSH’s report raises significant issues for anyone living, playing or learning around the thousands of miles of lead-sheathed telecom cables that are hanging between telephone poles. The cables need to be removed as soon as possible.
We also need EPA to finish the investigation it opened in late 2023 after the explosive Wall Street Journal investigation that first brought public attention to the issue. The agency has gone silent on the outcome. Finally, we need researchers, like Dr. Shiel, to consider whether lead-sheathed telecom cables hanging between telephone poles routinely release lead dust into communities when it rains or when disturbed by the wind.
- It is difficult to know how many miles, but AT&T told a court is had 200,000 miles and Verizon has reported having 27,000 miles. Verizon has blocked New York Public Service Commission from making public a summary it submitted. That decision is being appealed by the Commission. ↩︎
- Unleaded Kids is not aware of any state that has adopted their version of the OSHA rule that is significantly more protective. ↩︎