Mott: EPA Eyes CERCLA for Lead-Covered Telephone Lines
In 2023, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that there are more than 2,000 lead-covered telephone cables—many obsolete and some long-abandoned—across the United States. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appears poised to address the issue via the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund program, according to Shook Associate Dalton Mott. Mott wrote an article on the potential EPA response in the American Bar Association's Natural Resources & Environment’s Fall 2024 Issue.
In the article, titled “EPA Is Calling: Can It Clean Up Old Telephone Lines,” Mott said both EPA and telecommunications companies will face many hurdles if the agency decides to address the telephone lines via Superfund. He identified key challenges, including the challenge of identifying legal successors for purposes of CERCLA liability.
“At the very least, the EPA is likely to have more success working with the telecom companies rather than using its enforcement powers to force them to perform work,” he said. “The EPA may be able to attract more corporate buy-in by looking at ways to keep costs limited, such as focusing on the most critical telephone lines and tying multiple telephone lines into larger administrative sites to reduce overhead costs. CERCLA may represent a solution to the lead-in-telephone line issue, but one must ask: at what cost and in what time frame?”
