This discussion, "Radon Gas & Granite Countertops", in Ceramic and Stone Q&A (part of the category Do-It-Yourself & Consumer Support), begins, "Your blog is new to me but, thought I would post on this issue. I just finished my dream kitchen ..."
Your blog is new to me but, thought I would post on this issue. I just finished my dream kitchen with this exotic Brazilian granite - the one they say emits radon. Yeah, 4 slabs of it. Well, for my well being and that of my family, I am having it tested this week.I will keep you posted. Who's Al?
Your blog is new to me but, thought I would post on this issue. I just finished my dream kitchen with this exotic Brazilian granite - the one they say emits radon. Yeah, 4 slabs of it. Well, for my well being and that of my family, I am having it tested this week.I will keep you posted. Who's Al?
Thank you in advance for posting the report, and complete results, of any testing done in your home. Please make sure that the testing company's name and contact info is on that report, so that if we have any questions about the testing methods used, or if any of us would like to hire them, we may contact them directly.
I think it would be a great learning experience to see how these tests are done, and how the reports are written up.
Earlier today FOX News had a story and video on the web about this subject and it wasn't near as Chicken Little as the above video.
I just went to their website and now I can't find the video or the story and it didn't come up in a search of their website. Earlier I tried to bring it here but didn't know how to do it.
If someone wants to look at FOX News for that video it would be nice to have in the collection here.
Chicken Little is a very appropriate description. They pick a few pieces of granite that ARE hot, and make it sound like ALL granite is, and that's simply not true. I spoke with Andy Graves yesterday. He's a solid surface fabricator, and runs a forum called thefabricatornetwork.com . Originally he was willing to help Al with his reasearch. To the point where Al let Andy use his geiger counter to go to a local major importer's stone yard. After several days, and approximztely 2000 slabs, he found ONE SET OF SLABS with SLIGHTLY higher than normal readings. When he went back to Al with his findings, Al was all over him like a cheap suit, accusing him of tainting the findings, etc.. This issue isn't NEARLY as big as everyone's making it out to be. The estimates I'm hearing are less than 1% of all granite is hot, and that's born out by Andy's findings. Keep in mind, this is a solid surface fabricator, who would only stand to gain by positive findings in this witch hunt.
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right.
We understand why homeowners would be alarmed by this story, but the Marble Institute of America would like to assure people that research shows granite countertops pose no threat. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Reports and repeated independent studies have shown granite countertops pose no health hazard.
--EPA stated Friday: “EPA has no reliable data to conclude that types of granite used in countertops are significantly increasing indoor radon levels.” (What about radon in granite countertops?)
--University of Akron researchers found no threat. (http://www.marble-institute.com/indu...-akron2008.pdf)
--An independent scientific analysis of a variety of studies shows that, accounting for normal airflow in the typical home, radon contributed by granite countertops ranges from 0.01 – 0.02 pCi/L – levels that are 200 to 400 times lower than the EPA guideline of 4 pCi/L.
By some measures, the amount of radon emitted by a granite countertop is less than one millionth of that already present in household air from other sources. Many granite countertops do not emit radon at all, and those treated with sealant reduce emissions even further.
Tiffany Daniels
Cohn & Wolfe on behalf of the Marble Institute of America
Last edited by TFP Admin : July 29, 2008 at 05:12 PM. Reason: fixed broken link
Tiffany, you're the second person I've seen now, posting from Cohn and Wolfe on behalf of the MIA (the first being Silvia Osante over on Gardenweb). Are you folks their legal team?
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right.
Just saw a segment on this on one of the network stations local news last night. It was very even handed and their conclusion was the science does not support the allegations. Even showed the 8 months pregnant wife of a granite fabricator working on her granite counter top. Pretty compelling argument against the scare tactics.
I was even more surprised about their slant on the report as Cambria is a local company I'd guess KARE11 isn't going to be running any ads for them in the near future...
I'm going to post a link to another forum thread. There's a gentleman by the name of Caoimhín P. Connell posting there. Pay particular attention to his posts. This is his "cup of tea". He explains in laymen's terms (as much as possible) why this whole thing is nothing but smoke and mirrors:
As you can see, Bill Vincent has an axe to grind here. I pinned his ears back too many times on Gardenweb.com, and will do the same here in short order. The guy plays loose with the facts, supports questionable allies, and is desparately trying to keep his liability down from the stone he has installed. He loves to try to make these discussions about "Al" rather than the issues themselves.
Let's take the points in order.
Tiffiany Daniels is a PR person for Cohn & Wolfe, yes that Cohn & Wolfe, the big tobacco PR firm. They are cutting and pasting that bit all over the internet. We posted their talking points and the form letters that angry stone fabricators were supposed to fill in and send to their local papers. They are on our blog,
The EPA is working with our little alliance, so are several state radiological protection offices. Despite Cohn & Wolfe's claims, although in fairness this was posted before the MIA admitted that the EPA "backed off their strong support of our position". Some strong position, huh? She also left out that the EPA pointed out that there are granite countertop stones with very high levels of Uranium based radiation, and where there is Uranium, there is always Radon.
There independent studies? Paid for by the MIA, and they mentioned .01 and .02 emissions without mentioning that there was a .27 pCi/L in that study. The study's measurements were fine according to the scientists we asked to review the work, but they said the conclusions were unsupported by the study. And it wasn't published, so is worthless as proof of anything.
Here is where the MIA shoots itself in the foot. That million times less than what Radon already present in the home? Do the math, the MIA/Dr. Chyi study found .27 pCi/L from Crema Bordeaux. Indoor levels were quoted at .40 pCi/L, which is 33% less than the .27 pCi/L found in the Crema Bordeaux.
Even the .01 and .02 was touted as 200 to 400 times less than the epa action level (4 pCi/L), yet in the next sentence they claim it is a million times less????????
And these are Bill's buddies???? You can't trust a word they write!
Now Bill claims we say "all granite is dangerous". Hardly, he makes that up so he can score a cheap point. We say between 3 and 15% of granites need to be looked at very carefully. The Chinese stone companies report that only 70 to 80 % of their granites pass the safe level tests. We also say some granites are dangerous, no pussy footing about it.
As to Andy on Fabnet, he reported levels of 60 and 80 uR/hr, safe levels are 40 uR/Hr. I was not all over him, my wife was, for good reason. We have yet to walk into a slab yard without finding 100 uR/hr level slabs. Heck, most of the Bordeaux family will hit that and most of the Africa Range Collection (a branded line of granite). Surveying 2,000 slabs would have taken two weeks of 8 hour days, no way in hell he surveyed 2,000 slabs. Despite that, Andy had seen the videos of 400, 500, even 800 uR/hr granite slabs, he has seen the data logs, he should have questioned the type of granite he was surveying not the validity of the issue. Chances are he was in a china import yard, and they have laws about high level granite. Most of the Chinese importers advertise Class A stone, nothing over 40 uR/Hr.....
Andy was flirting with the MIA for a bit back then, had some new stone advertisers, even posted that Build Clean was a fraud. Later retracted that, edited it out. Andy made a mistake, he has cleaned it up since then and is staying nuetral.
And the video clip of CBS Morning show? That was a chunk of one of my samples, Niagara Gold. Came from a remnant we purchased from a slab yard in Blanchard, OK. There is proof right in front of your eyes that there is a legitimate issue going on here.
Looks like Jim Hogan, the current president of the MIA is another of Bill's buddies. The MIA has been lying about this issue since 1995, but hasn't spent a nickel on heading off the issue, which is why were are were we are today.
Bill Vincent wrote
"Good question. One I'm wondering if it has an unbiased answer. I know Al has all kinds of "facts" and "figures", but they're all bought and paid for, so far as I've seen."
Bill, that is a bald face lie. We have used a dozen or so studies from around the world on Radon/radiation from granite countertops. Neither we, a quartz company, or a solid surface company has had anything to do with any of these studies. The only organization that has paid for anything is the MIA. Build Clean did give Dr. Kitto a grant to study the issues, but if you think you can corrupt the New York State Health Dept, well, you probably work for the MIA. That study will be presented to the Health Physicist Society and AARST, till then all we know is what Kitto has told the media. He has found several granites that raise a homes levels one or two pCi/L . And that was before I started shipping him the truly hot granite samples from Africa and Brazil. Got another crate in the back of the station wagon for tomorrow.
"If he'd been honest about it, and instead of parading around, as he has, complete with the forum name Hotgranitekills,"
Bill, last time I used my shop name and you screamed "agenda". This time I used a screen name that was honest. Now what is your excuse? That entire gardenweb fight started when I warned a consumer to pick another color besides red granite because of the issues. One little sentence, but you had money to lose, so you started squealing.
"This has the potential of cutting the granite industry atleast in half. All because of this yahoo shooting off his mouth."
Sure, they had 14 years to address the issues, 20 if Dr. Hans is believed. Now someone shows up that buys a meter and proves the issue, heck even G & L Marble's purchasing agent agreed it was a valid issue. Did you tell your friends here about that? One of Bills buddies worked his butt off for two years to shout down any discussion, turned out he buys granite for this huge granite importer, and the super hot Niagara Gold came from a quarry they co own! Talk about consumer fraud!!!!!
T, I guess you are the administrator here, thanks for what you wrote. I had forgotten my password, thus the guest post. And as you can see, Bill has posted misleading, false and inflammatory information. Not only that, but he has been baiting me to show up and address his claims. Bill leaves too many openings with his falsehoods, and by questioning my honesty he does indeed deserve a brutal response. A civil debate on the issues, or even a conversation, would be excellent, but if one sides slings mud like Bill has done here, it sets the tone for a response.
I'm gonna hammer him in this post, will let his crap pass in future posts, if the forum is well moderated.
Bud Cline,
Fair enough that I didn't offer footnotes. But, neither did the PhD and he is expected to. Besides, as you said, it was laborious enough. And every single point is addressed over and over again on that blog site and the main Radon/radiation web pages. The issue is beaten to death, what more do you need?
Do this, go back and take three items that you feel I didn't address. Post them here with a link back to the page. I will address them one by one, for as long as you bring them up. Patience though, it has taken me three weeks to find the time to post tonight, and I was itching to slap old Bill around. Email usually takes me till 9 pm to finish up, then there is running a business, plenty of work taken home at night.
And relying on the MIA to deal with this???? Fourteen years of lying about the issues, refusing to deal with it when they could?????? And you trust them???
We have spent far more time and space on the granite issuses because of the sheer volume of lies that were being told. Once the playing field is leveled, we will work more on the solid surface info. Keep in mind solidsurfacealliance.org was made for one reason, to gather the facts about competing products so that fabricators could access them easily by linking to them, as I have done here.
We have no intentions of being fair, the facts are laid out for others to see for themselves.
Then there are Bill's claims on the "ethics thread" on Fabnet. He linked to it, assuming you guys were too lazy to go read it. Just read it, you will find that I was taking the pulse of the group, in public no less, about the proper way to go about the study. It is pretty clear cut, only someone with Bill's deep seated hatred would not see the truth. Ethics........ > Forum > The Fabricator Network
Bill is [bleeped out by TFP Admin] as well, he is waiting for the CDC or the CPSC to do something? They don't address radiation issues, the EPA and the NRC do that, but the NRC won't touch NORM or TENORM issues, leaving them to the EPA. Bill is basically stating that he won't believe anyone on these issues, too much money at risk for old Bill.
"And I never said they were done by the solid surface industry. I said they were funded by them, and I should probably add that that includes organizations with an interest in the solid surface industry.... or as shown by one of the articles above, manufacturers of radon detectors."
There you go again, Bill. [bleeped out by TFP Admin] Not one nickel was spent from the solid surface industry. And the radon detector company was owned by one of the largest granite importers in the world, Sensa, owned by Cosinteno who also owns Silestone. Silestone didn't fund Build Clean, C & C and Sensa did.
Now, Bill has been dealt with, shown for what he is. Although Bill would love for this to be all about "Al", I suggest we forget his fixation and discuss the issues civily. I have a wealth of info on the subject, deal daily with the testing effort scientists, and there is not another around that knows both the science and the granite industry. Since I supply many of the super hot granite samples, I get some info a bit quicker than others.
What would you like to know? I'll answer if I can, find the answer if I don't have it.
Oh, and Bill? Just stay quiet for a while.
Fair enough, TFP Admin. If you run a tight ship, I am going to really like it here. Let's let this be about facts. I do need to address Bill's arguments. Hopefully they will be the last.
Bill wrote:
"Build Clean, which is also a front organization for the solid surface industry"
No, that is false. Build Clean was started with a grant from C & C who owns the Sensa natural stone company as well as owning Silestone. Cambria came in later, early this year, with their funding. Here is the catch, neither can put another nickel into Build Clean, in fact, Build Clean has to raise twice the initial sponsors funding or they will lose their Non Profit standing. Were either company to add any more money, they would just make it harder for BC to survive.
Neither Sensa, C & C, Silestone, or Cambria are in the solid surface business. They compete with solid surface for sales. Saying that the solid surface industry is behind this is ludicrous.
The point about Cohn & Wolfe is that they contridict themselves from sentence to sentence. They have a new girl working the forums, Silvia. I wonder what happend to Tiffany?
In short, their arguments directly contridict their own arguments. Why would anyone trust them? And this is no shrinking violet, this is big tobacco PR firm. Represents Phillip Morris among others. Huge, usually well ran, not so much in this case.
We are granite fabricators as well, which is why we fight so hard to get the truth out. We lose jobs over testing, too hot and we ask them to pick another color. The guys across the street have no such morals, they will expose their employees to anything.
Now, with the personal stuff out of the way, ask any question you like. I know everyone of the scientists and allies on our side of this debate. We have slab yards, stone fabricators, even stone importers donating materials and services. Don't let anyone tell you this is about one material against another. This is to get some dangerous products off the market before the lawsuits make it impossible to sell a granite countertop.
Thanks for the moderation. This will be a good discussion.
Last edited by TFP Admin : August 18, 2008 at 09:09 PM. Reason: fixing the YouTube video link
I don't have a dog in this fight other than the fact that I have a passion for stone in general.
I do however have a curiosity. I'm not able to put my mouse on some vital information. Either I haven't looked in the right places or the information doesn't exist.
What I would like to know at this point in time is:
"Who is Al Gerhart?"
Is there a Bio or some background information about you somewhere Al. So far all I know about you is that you are "down on stone" and it appears in favor of solid surfacing.
So...
Who are you?
What/who are your legitimate associations?
What qualifies you to be a specialist on the charges you have been making?
Do you have any particular academic studies in this field in your background?
What's the reason for your persistence?
Why do you only supply "hot" samples to media outlets? (When there apparently are plenty of "not so hot" samples available to play with.)
Where did you find a station wagon these days?
You know(?) Stuff like that! Why should anyone listen to you? Help me out here please. What are your credentials?
I know of another website where a regular participant posts endless drab on various subjects. If you ask him for the time...he builds you a clock, every time. When a question arises he obviously researches it on the Internet then returns to post (copy and paste) endless information on the subject and takes credit for the words himself. Thereby expecting people to think HE has all this knowledge stored in his little brain. When his comments are countered or proven to be incorrect he then continues to argue supplying even more mucus in an attempt to save face and support his earlier comments.
I kind of get this same feeling with this "granite thing" of yours.
Floor Covering Weekly had an article about this topic in its most recent publication. According to the EPA, MIA, NSC, and the NKBA, "There is no credible scientific evidence suggesting that granite countertops pose a significant radon risk.", but they all agree that granite does put off radon gas, but only less than one millionth of that already present in the household air from other sources. Seems to me like someone stired this up hoping to profit off the popularity of granite countertops.
"The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten."
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I'd guess KARE11 isn't going to be running any ads for them in the near future...
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