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CDC: Lead from phone lines is highly concentrated in Springfield manhole muck

SPRINGFIELD — A sediment sample collected in January from a telephone worker manhole under Central Street turned out to be, frighteningly for workers, 3% lead. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Hazard Evaluation Program and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said the muck had lead concentrations of 30,000 parts per million. To put that in perspective, the Environmental Protection Agency lowered last year its acceptable level of lead in soil from 400 parts per million to 200 parts per million. 'Now, it's in the company's court as to what it will do,' said John Rowley Sr., business manager of IBEW Local 2324. Local phone company Verizon, a successor to the Bell system that used lead to shield phone lines up until the 1960s, did not respond to questions this week. Verizon stockholders have a chance this week to weigh in on lead, though. The Association of BellTel Retirees Inc., owner of 214 shares of Verizon's common stock, is asking stockholders to force Verizon management to do a comprehensive independent lead study and release the results by December of this year. Rowley, along with scientists from Boston University and New York University and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, have been investigating and publicizing the threat posed by old lead-sheathed telephone cables for more than a year. Sample swipes of workers' hands conducted on Central Street in January also showed the presence of lead, a neurotoxin. Rowley said he still awaits results of air and soil samples collected just last month from a manhole in the Forest Park neighborhood. Advocates, the union and Markey, a Democrat, also worry about federal cutbacks at NIOSH, the CDC and the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which might hamstring efforts to protect workers. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators that NIOSH's work will not be interrupted. But Rowley said he's been told that, while there are reinstatements from Department of Government Efficiency-led layoffs, administrative and procurement staff responsible for obtaining test supplies are still gone. West Springfield buys old Walgreens for police station Target of Springfield eminent domain, 'Chicken Building' owners cry foul in court West Springfield gun buyback nets 34 guns Read the original article on MassLive.