Funding the – In Lake Tahoe, toxic lead cables owned by AT&T sat on the lake floor for decades—until a $100,000 science grant from WHEN Justice helped produce the evidence a lawsuit needed. The payoff was fast: AT&T settled in nine weeks and removed the cables within months
For decades, toxic lead cables lay like giant sea monsters snaking across the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Installed as early telecommunications lines and owned by AT&T, the abandoned cables contained over 100,000 pounds of lead. Slowly deteriorating, they were leaching contaminants into one of the most iconic lakes in the country.
In 2021, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, or CSPA, filed a lawsuit to force AT&T to remove the abandoned lead cables. The case dragged on for over two years, through expensive procedural ground. Without sampling and scientific testing, it was difficult to make the case in court.
Then Roland Peralta. the founder of a new non-profit called WHEN Justice. offered to provide $100. 000 for the science needed to support the litigation. The shift was immediate. With the new funding. scuba divers went down to the lake floor to collect samples that helped show that the lead in the cables was leaching into the surrounding waters. The crucial piece of missing evidence came from lead isotopic testing—“fingerprints” that showed the lead in the cables was the same as the surrounding contamination in the lake.
Once the contamination was linked to the cables, AT&T settled the case in nine weeks and removed the cables within months. “That was the ‘aha’ moment, where we realized we could scale this model,” Peralta said.
That moment sits at the center of WHEN Justice’s pitch: that strategic funding at the right moment in environmental litigation can change what courts see, and what companies are forced to do.
WHEN Justice is built around a simple but sharply targeted idea—donations can fund the most costly steps of proving harm. The nonprofit raises funds to help pay for the expensive pieces of litigation at the intersection of environmental and human health. including scientific testing. expert analysis. and sampling. The organization frames those costs as the barrier that often stops smaller entities from taking on massive corporations in court.
The Lake Tahoe case is also the proof point. “Those funds provided us with the evidence we needed at a critical time in the litigation,” Erica Maharg, the environmental attorney who represented the sportfishing group against AT&T, said.
Colin West, founder and CEO of the nonprofit Clean Up the Lake, describes that gap in plain terms. “Being a smaller organization that is trying to step up and take on big litigation against larger entities is challenging. ” he said. “A group like WHEN Justice that has closing that funding gap as their core focus fills a need. and a role that others can’t.”.
Strategic funding is also designed to work like a pay-it-forward mechanism. Because environmental lawsuits often include cost recovery, WHEN’s donations can sometimes be used repeatedly—helping fund multiple cases from the same original donation.
WHEN Justice was officially launched on Earth Day in April 2026.
The nonprofit argues the need is immediate, because enforcement is not always driven by regulators and government agencies. “We think of government and regulators as being the primary enforcement mechanisms. But in reality, many environmental cleanups happen because of the efforts of small organizations,” Maharg said.
For groups taking on powerful defendants, the obstacle is rarely the legal standard on paper. “If you’re going up against big companies. litigation is so expensive. ” WHEN’s chief executive and legal officer. Jacqueline Biner. said. “The way the legal system is set up right now. it sadly is not always about the merits of the case. It’s often just about who has more money.”.
In that reality. WHEN’s model is meant to remove the cost choke point by funding the science that makes a claim provable. In another current campaign. the organization is fundraising to support scientific analysis and sampling in a lawsuit involving a long-closed hazardous waste disposal site on the edge of the San Pablo Bay in California. The lawsuit alleges that toxic substances are now leaching from the landfill into the bay. WHEN and the public are funding experts to conduct sampling and analyze results. tracing how pollution is moving from the landfill toward the bay—grounding the case in science and data.
“We think it is a sea change,” Biner said, describing strategic, targeted litigation funding as a way to push large corporations toward a cheaper alternative: cleaning up their own messes instead of fighting in court to evade responsibility.
The nonprofit’s founders connect the strategy to everyday responsibility and future consequences. Peralta, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of wellness company Nutrafol, initially envisioned giving back through traditional philanthropy. But he soon saw a larger opportunity: directing strategic funding to organizations fighting David-and-Goliath battles against large corporations.
“I kept asking myself, what kind of world will I leave for my son?” Peralta said.
Maharg echoes the stakes in the way courts work in practice. “The ability to access funding for litigation is really exciting. because it means that we can take on bigger cases. ” she said. “Having a partner like WHEN that can help with fundraising key costs in the litigation makes all the difference in our ability to take on these well-funded polluters.”.
Over the next several years. WHEN Justice aims to build what it calls an infrastructure for a new kind of corporate accountability—helping identify harmful corporate conduct before it becomes irreversible. The organization plans to create a direct way for people to participate through crowd-funding. Peralta and Biner envision an interactive platform where donors can direct their dollars toward the fights that matter most to them. Those funds would support both large. precedent-setting cases and smaller. community-driven campaigns that help local residents confront injustices in their own backyards.
Winning, Biner says, isn’t the only metric. “We also believe it is ok to pursue a case that may lose if it will create momentum and pressure. If we educate the courts, place new accountability on corporations, and educate consumers, that moves the needle in a different way.”
That goal extends to building public involvement in the legal process itself. “We think there is so much more power in a million people giving a dollar than in a single person giving a million dollars. ” Biner said. “We want people to become invested in these cases. to follow them. and to become more informed about the legal process.”.
For Peralta. the point is agency—making it possible for individuals to act on environmental anger that can otherwise feel distant and immovable. “Everybody’s angry and appalled about these massive environmental issues. but as an individual. it’s hard to know how to help. ” he said. “WHEN Justice is designed to be the call to action button that everyone has been longing for. to help individuals play a role in shutting this madness down by voting with their dollar.”.
The Lake Tahoe cables didn’t start as a courtroom story. They started as a slow leak—over 100,000 pounds of lead lying on the lake floor, deteriorating for decades. But the evidence that broke the case open came from divers. sampling. and lead isotopic “fingerprints.” Once that link was made. the litigation moved quickly: a settlement in nine weeks. removal within months.
For WHEN Justice, that sequence is the roadmap—showing how funding the science can be the lever that turns contamination into accountability.
Lake Tahoe AT&T lead cables environmental litigation scientific sampling lead isotopic testing WHEN Justice CSPA San Pablo Bay landfill hazardous waste environmental justice nonprofit fundraising