UPDATE Former Comcast employee Greg Bostard recently filed a complaint against Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Verizon New Jersey Inc. in U.S. District Court in New Jersey that he hopes will become a class action lawsuit. He says while working for Comcast, he was exposed to Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables.
Bostard is seeking relief to remedy the harms caused by the telco’s “negligent operation, assessment and disposal of a sprawling network of toxic lead-sheathed” telecom cables. He acknowledges the defendants’ “predecessors—corporate affiliates of the Bell Telephone Company and American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T)—laid nearly all the cables in question between the late 1800s and the 1960s.”
But when the telcos turned to plastic sheathing, and later fiber optics, they left many of the old cables in place and “abandoned the lead that washed off the cables into the surrounding environment,” instead of “properly disposing them” them as required by federal and New Jersey law, he claims.
Inside Towers reported that Verizon and AT&T left many of the cables in place because that was deemed safer than disturbing the ground or water around them. Both telecoms have also been sued over the cables by shareholders. Those lawsuits include complaints from former employees, we noted. Inside Towers also reported that both AT&T and Verizon are supplying information to federal regulators concerning the issue.
Bostard alleges that leaving the cables where they are puts utility workers at risk for lead poisoning. “Utility workers are uniquely harmed by this misconduct,” he writes in the lawsuit. “Their jobs put them in constant contact with these cables and the environmental media which surrounds them. They must manhandle these cables to do their jobs.”
He worked for Comcast for about 29 years, from 1990 to 2019. Bostard says his role was to maintain and service Comcast’s aerial cables on utility poles in New Jersey that sit above Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables. Per the complaint, it says to reach Comcast’s aerial cables, Bostard had to climb over Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables. His “clothes and body would regularly rub against Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables as he climbed up the utility poles to reach Comcast’s aerial cables.”
Bostard also used Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables to “hook in” while he worked on Comcast’s aerial cables. To hook in, he would use his hands to wrap a strap around Verizon’s lead sheathed cables and grab them. “As Mr. Bostard perspired, he would rub his face, including his eyes and mouth with his hands that had been in direct contact with Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables.”
During lunch, Bostard “was in direct and regular contact with Verizon’s lead-sheathed and ingested and inhaled lead from Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables during the course of his 29-year career,” according to the complaint. Due to the exposure, the complaint alleges that Bostard “suffered an injury that creates and/or increases the risk that he will develop … catastrophic health effects.”
“Bostard, on behalf of himself and the class, seeks medical monitoring to enable early detection of future lead-related conditions, and abatement to remove and properly dispose of the lead-sheathed cables in New Jersey and surrounding lead contamination.” Bostard demands a jury trial. He asked the court to award himself and the class the cost of the lawsuit, including attorney’s fees and “any other relief that is deemed just and proper.”
Verizon and Verizon New Jersey aren’t required to answer the complaint until the end of the month.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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