solidsurfacealliance.org Blog

It has been an amazing week, far too much info has flowed in to handle it in one post. I’ll break it up so that some of it gets posted tonight.

First off, on other forums I have mentioned that one of the orginal cases was partially proven true from backup sources, but the major parts remained unusable from lack of verification. No more.

Here is what transpired. A builder built a new home in upstate New York He had a kitchen granite countertop, Shivakasi installed from Home Depot in Glen Falls, which hired a firm in Long Island New York make it and install it. This firm, Innovative Stone, is a national firm that handles a lot of the Home Depot granite countertop work .

After the granite was installed, the builder/Contractor, John, worked in the home for two months finishing up, then lived in the home for two years before selling the home to a doctor who used it as a summer home. Somehow there was cause for a Radon test, and the home failed. During the initial survey, Stan Liebert, the Radon expert, started finding higher radiation as he approached the kitchen. From a normal background of sixty cpm, the meter started reading 300 cpm as he neared the kitchen. When he laid the meter on the Shivakasi Granite, it skyrocketed to 2,000 cpm.

Once Home Depot was told of the radiation rate, three hours passed till it was laying in the yard, with the consumer getting agreement for a new countertop for no charge. John, the contractor, then said “What about me?” He was told to visit his local doctor and get a chest X ray. Unfortunetly, John’s X ray showed lung cancer. A non smoker, John must have had a good case because Home Depot settled for an undisclosed amount and had John sign a non disclosure agreement as part of his settlement. The homeowner and Radon expert, didn’t sign anything, which is why this has come to light.

We looked up Innovative Stone, which seems to be Stone Mark granite. Shivakasi isn’t shown in their offerings but one called Soleil looks to be the same. We were told that this doctors home is one of several found with high levels of Radon and radiation. Mr. Liebert took the info to Dr. Kitto of the New York State Health Dept, devisied a plan to help the granite company rid their slab yard of problem slabs, then they had a meeting with the local Innovative Stone fabrication shop that actually produced and installed the granite. Expecting at least some gratitude for their offer of help, instead they got a chilly meeting ending with a promise to advise their company president of the issues and further contact.

A few weeks passed, no contact. So Stan was in the area of the main headquarters of Innovative stone, and dropped in to introduce himself. Instead, he was told that the President of Innovative Stone refused to meet with him, despite sitting in her office a few feet away.

Other shops welcomed Stan and Dr. Kitto. One went so far to outfitt their workers with half face dust repirators, complete with charcoal filters. I have to wear one of those things when spraying in our spray booth, really uncomfortable. The granite shop must have taken the advice seriously in order to enforce the rules. In many shops, you will see a guy or two with a hole poked in their simple dust mask for smoking a cigarettee, if they are even wearing a dust mask.

A section of the Shivakasi granite countertop was tested by Stan Liebert. It produced 4,000 pCi/Sf in their tests, enough to raise the doctors home to 90 pCi/L. The EPA says anything over 2 pCi/L is a concern, 4 pCi/L the “action” level, and 20 pCi/L used to be the max allowed before the govt did something unpleasant. An Accustar Radon meter was used in the testing, a $4,000 meter.

Stan said he first learned of the granite/Radon issue when a granite floor was found to cause elevated Radon levels in a home. It seemed the cold air return was mounted near the granite tile floor, causing the Radon produced to be spread to all parts of the home.

The health of the workers in Innovative Stone’s fabrication shops is unknown. The Radon and radiaition from a hot granite top is bad enough for a homeowner, but a fabricator is exposed to far, far more radiation from the dust being inhaled or ingested. An expert in enviromental health issues told me that something as simple as touching your lips will transfer enough dust to be an issue. Much less what ultra fine dust is scattered throughout the shop and even the offices. We are a wet shop, all cutting and polishing are done with water flooding the cut, but some dust is generated regardless. It get all the way into the office, about 100 yards away, and when cleaning up after the job, there is little to do but sweep it up after the mud dries.

Our shop mandates dust masks, the best we could find, NIOSH approved. But we have learned that even more protection would be best and are being advised by the state OSHA consultation office on the proper mask. So far, they are still researching the issue cause no one has brought up that grantie dust is not only radioactive, it has a posionous heavy metal content as well.

Another thing, Stan agrees that the first foot of a granite countertop will have a much higher level of Radon. He also mentioned that using the higher readings from the Geiger counters was important because it included the Radon daughter products. So the more we know, the less certain we are of exactly what will wind up being a safe level. For now, we are sticking with 20 to 25 uR/Hr Gamma maximum, which is easily attainable with a little care and concern. We would rather get you into a 10 or 13 uR/hr stone if possible.

If you want to see a pod cast of Stan talking about part of this story, here it is.

Or just go to BuildClean.org and look in the bottom right hand corner of the home page