SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — AT&T on Wednesday signaled it will resolve a yearslong legal struggle over abandoned telecommunication cables contaminating Lake Tahoe, and remove the disused lines.
The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance filed suit in 2021 over the cables that it said were leaching toxic lead into the lake that bridges California and Nevada. The two cables, about 8 miles long, are at the bottom of the lake and contain over 68 tons of lead.
The federal case was advancing through court when both the alliance and AT&T on Wednesday filed documents in support of a consent decree. A hearing on that decree is set for Nov. 7.
“This is a monumental win for the environment, the communities who drink Lake Tahoe water, and people with lake-dependent livelihoods, and the millions of annual visitors,” said Chris Shutes, executive director of the alliance, in a statement.
Lake Tahoe is a major tourist destination in both summer and winter, with visitors drawn to boating and skiing, as well as the town of South Lake Tahoe and casinos on the Nevada side.
According to the alliance, the abandoned cables are on the western side of the lake. One of them has its cut ends submerged. Damaged over the years, the lead sheathing is now exposed in certain spots.
Investigations supported by the alliance revealed lead in the water and sediment near the cables. Additionally, lead was found in algae — a base of the food chain for lake fisheries — as well as clams and crawdads near the cables.
“Designated as an Outstanding National Resource Water, Lake Tahoe has no major pollution sources of lead or other metals entering the lake,” said Sudeep Chandra, director of the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno, in a statement. “So, our expectations were to see minimal to low concentrations of lead in this exceptionally clean and clear lake.”
Instead, the alliance said it discovered in one sample that biofilm on a cable showed lead at 67,000 times more concentrated than a sample taken from a rock.
AT&T in a statement to Courthouse News said it wants to remove the cables by December. If that proves impossible, it intends to remove them next year, pending weather and permitting issues.
“We are working with Keep Tahoe Blue and are grateful for their assistance with this process,” AT&T said.
While opting to resolve the case against it, AT&T said that multiple analyses have determined that the cables don’t threaten the environment or public health. Despite being confident in its case and of the cables’ safety, the communications giant chose to reach a settlement.
“With the litigation behind us, we are fulfilling our original commitment to remove the cables in Lake Tahoe,” AT&T president-California Marc Blakeman said.
AT&T said that in 2021 it agreed to remove the cables to avoid the distraction and expense of a lawsuit. However, after news reports about the cables emerged in summer 2023, it opted to pause removing them and have experts perform more analysis. That analysis now complete, AT&T will continue the removal process.
The alliance said AT&T chose to restart the litigation to reveal the merits of the alliance’s claims after conditionally settling the case years ago.
“We are proud to have fought for the removal of this toxic waste from Lake Tahoe and we are happy that AT&T decided to finally step up,” Shutes said.
The League to Save Lake Tahoe also praised the agreement.
“We welcome this announcement and appreciate AT&T’s commitment to resume the removal of these cables,” said Jesse Patterson, chief strategy officer for the League to Save Lake Tahoe, in a statement. “Lake Tahoe is a special place and deserves this kind of protective action to Keep Tahoe Blue.”