Is Your Granite Safe?
Want ‘em all? OK – in order:
1. Absolutely, of course!
2. Yes, as long as I can qualify that.
3. It’s as safe as anything else in the house, and probably safer.
As you might guess, I’m going with the last one. To the sometimes detriment of vicarious thrills and my wallet, I tend to side with honesty.
At this point, I can envision the exploding heads of several people on both sides of the debate on granite countertops and radon/radiation emissions. Some will say I’m not supporting the industry line. Some will say that my answer doesn’t really answer the question. And I’m sure I’ll be called an ignorant stooge by some with reams of data about picoliters and the notion of protecting the public from imminent harm.
It’s not a question of sidestepping. This is a topic without black/white, true/false, life/death answers and conclusions. And, due to a combination of competitive zeal, some overbearing notions and enough science to confuse the issue, the question of safety puts stone fabricators in the unfortunate position of front-line troops.
It’s important to remember how we got here, as two (now down to one) manufacturers of countertop surfaces helped fund a non-profit group (BuildClean), which in turn helped to orchestrate the Holy Grail of earned media: an article in the New York Times last July raising questions on granite’s safety with radon emisssions in homes.
The authoritative aura of the Times set off a wave of reports – mainly on local television stations – raising the safety question. The Marble Institute of America, the stone’s industry association, ended up raising a defense fund, hiring a New York-based strategic PR firm, and paying for its own scientific study to refute the charges.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued expanded advisories belaying any major concerns, and even the laboratories of Consumer Reports offered its opinion on the basic safety of granite.
With that kind of evidence, granite should be absolutely safe, right?
The problem is the word absolutely. Using a definitive term allows anyone with any bit of possible evidence to raise the question of safety all over again. Find a six-inch-square bit of a slab that makes a meter go wild, and absolutely goes out the window.
So we enter the land of the qualified statement, with phrases like “in almost every case” or “the overwhelming majority” and the like. The words give evidence to the reasonable assumption – in essence, the basis of the EPA advisories – that finding granite that emits enough radon/radiation to exceed the agency’s safety threshold is going to be, on average, a very rare occurrence. (Note the four qualifiers in just one sentence.)
Unfortunately, nobody – granite’s supporters or detractors – can put an exact number on this. This still works to the benefit of any detractor, who just needs to find one slab in a thousand with a hot spot or two to cast any doubts all over again. And, because we’re not dealing with stone from a particular place, or of any other consistent identification, a well-crafted email can place any variety under suspicion.
Last year, I argued that if the problem’s big enough, the federal government would need to step in to ensure public safety. Since then, the EPA’s advisory noted that “the existing data is insufficient to conclude that the types of granite commonly used in countertops are significantly increasing indoor radon levels,” and will monitor ongoing research. At this time, though, they’re not taking action.
For all the words about this, the question of unhealthy levels of radon/radiation coming out of garden-variety kitchen countertops isn’t a crisis on the level of cholera or the H1N1 virus. We’re not quarrying, importing, cutting and installing solid pieces of poison; these aren’t slabs of pure yellowcake uranium ore. And even the EPA notes that there are “too many variables to generalize about potential health risks.”
So there’s the third answer. Literally, it’s as safe as the other building components of a home – nearly all of which, on very rare occasions, can exhibit questionable levels of radon/radiation levels. Depending on its place of origin and materials used (even if it’s the foundation concrete made with fill excavated from the backyard), there’s a potential problem.
This does sound like the granite-detraction argument turned on its head, but it’s not done to ridicule the idea of safety. It’s been our position at Stone Business, ever since this began, that anyone concerned with radon should have their residence tested, whether or not there’s an ounce of decorative stone in any room.
It’s the best way at the moment to be fair with consumers, fabricators and anyone else at the retail end of the dimensional-stone chain. We don’t sell products that we know to be harmful to the public.
There’s still plenty to learn about the issue. And, hopefully, we’ll progress beyond the current information that’s been provided by both sides for the benefit of their arguments.
In the coming months, everyone needs good, independent scientific research that goes beyond hypothetical measurements of imaginary rooms, and tests installed work and whole slabs at random stoneyards. Sticking a meter at a plate-sized square of stone that’s been stored in a box doesn’t count, and neither does a report on various samples that wouldn’t be large enough for the remnant racks or on materials never stocked by a typical shop. It needs to be real-time, real-world and without bias.
From this, we’d also get uniform testing procedures (which is something, it should be noted, that the MIA is also developing). Hopefully, these procedures could be simplified and sent upstream in the stone-delivery chain, giving fabricators and consumers a reliable way of eliminating any doubts.
When it comes to the question raised in the headline, we in the industry believe the answer is yes. Let’s make sure the customers believe that, too.
Emerson Schwartzkopf can be reached at emerson@stonebusiness.net. You can also read his regular blog at Stone Business Online and stonebusinesseditor.wordpress.com. And don’t forget to keep up with Stone Business on Twitter (StoneBizMag) and Facebook (search: Stone Business Magazine).
This article first appeared in the September 2009 print edition of Stone Business magazine. ©2009 Western Business Media Inc.