What is the effect of having an electrical ground close to a telecom
> (telephone land line) ground and what is the recommended distance they
> should be apart.
Usually they should be zero inches apart.
That said, the ground that you find in an outlet should not be trusted, run a wire directly to a metalic water pipe (but not a sprinkler), building steel, or back to the electrical system grounding conductor. (IIRC, in some cases, which I'm not going to look up at the moment, you're -required- to bond to the electrical system ground.)
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