Are Your Beautiful Granite Countertops Full Of Uranium? Maybe.
A routine radon test revealed a surprise in Lynn Sugarman's kitchen a few years ago. Usually, radon is found in your basement ( underground deposits of uranium decay and produce the gas) -- but when the radon specialist inspected Dr. Sugarman's house --he found radon in her kitchen.
From the New York Times:
“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.
Granite, even the stuff that is commonly used in kitchen countertops, can contain uranium or other radioactive elements. The granite in Dr. Sugarman's kitchen was especially "hot."
The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day. In Dr. Sugarman’s kitchen, the readings were 100 picocuries per liter. In her basement, where radon readings are expected to be higher because the gas usually seeps into homes from decaying uranium underground, the readings were 6 picocuries per liter.
...
“It’s not that all granite is dangerous,” said Stanley Liebert, the quality assurance director at CMT Laboratories in Clifton Park, N.Y., who took radiation measurements at Dr. Sugarman’s house. “But I’ve seen a few that might heat up your Cheerios a little.”
So what do you do if your suspect your granite is radioactive? Well, the NYT says that you can get some do it yourself radon kits from the Environmental Protection Agency, or your local hardware store. You could also choose to spend some money to have a professional come in. Expect to spend $20-$30 for a do it yourself kit, and $100 to $300 to have your countertop tested by a professional.
What’s Lurking in Your Countertop? [NYT]
(Photo: Getty)
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Comments:
This is a rather strange situation. I've never heard of rocks emitting radiation...
Regulators! Mount up.
@linus: Um, Uranium Ore? Most rocks are mildly radioactive, so this isn't all that surprising when you think about it.
@Ahoatam: Regulation, when done correctly, is done for the public good. Then there's regulation for regulation's sake. Personally I'd rather the contractor I hired test to make sure that the materials he's using are safe, and I have no problem with regulating that at some level along the supply chain.
Phew, it's a good job all those radiation detectors installed at the ports to stop terrorists bringing in a dirty bomb caught this in time!
@Ahoatam: What alternative do you propose? I'm all for "buyer beware" when I'm taking my car to the shop, or buying electronics online. Current regulations for things like car dealers selling me a lemon, or whether that baby seat performs adequately, meet my needs. But how the hell am I supposed to "beware" of radioactive countertops? Be waiting at the front door with a geiger counter when the installers arrive?
Radon, by itself, isn't all that bad. Sure, it's not exactly healthy but it's not the worst of it.
See, Radon is a particle (see Rn on the periodic table). As it decays, it turns into (among other things) isotopes of lead. As a particle that floats around your home, you will eventually inhale, eat, drink, and absorb these particles. Once there, the decay process continues until it turns into stable lead. And, if we've learned anything from the semi-recent scandal from a certain country in east Asia, lead == bad.
Finally, here's a site that you might find helpful about Radon.
I hear that Iran is installing about 1,000,000lbs of granite countertops in the Presidential Palace. The Iranian Ambassador insists this is for peaceful dining and bathroom purposes.
@Necoras: So, regulation should be a last step taken when everything else breaks down and when the risk from not regulating is greater than its cost.
If you read the article, the industry is developing a testing protocol that would help solve the problem. Plus, if somebody's granite countertops are emitting levels that are dangerous, they have the ability to sue. And, a few lawsuits have a wonderful way of getting industry to change its behavior. If these things fail to protect consumers, then you have to look at how much harm is being caused -- the article did not find much. Given that, it seems to me that the EPA probably has more important things to spend its time on.
i knew there was a reason i prefer butcher block countertops.
@Ahoatam:
yes. In this case. it is exactly what we need.
Do you think regulations are bad? A stop sign is a regulation. How about regulations regarding food? Should corporations be allowed to sell you whatever crappy contaminated product they want?
If you don't think regulations are good, you probably shouldn't be reading "The Consumerist"
"So what do you do if your suspect your granite is radioactive?"What would prompt someone to suspect that? Other than this story.
Indeed, health physicists and radiation experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at extremely low levels. They say these emissions are insignificant compared with so-called background radiation that is constantly raining down from outer space or seeping up from the earth's crust, not to mention emanating from manmade sources like X-rays, luminous watches and smoke detectors.
David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, said the cancer risk from granite countertops, even those emitting radiation above background levels, is "on the order of one in a million." Being struck by lightning is more likely.So it's actually very rare and pretty unlikely to make any difference. Even still, I'll bet manufacturers will soon be testing all their materials and placing labels on them before too long, either on their own or when the EPA comes knocking. And in the meantime, if you're really that worried about it, it's pretty cheap to check by yourself.
@suburbancowboy: -Some- regulations are good. However, If you want the goverment to hold your hand cradle to grave though and dictate your whole life you need to leave the US and find a country a bit more socialist in nature. As big and evil as big corps can be, if they kill off their customer base by nuking them there will be no more income flow to buy their products. It is not in their best nature to hurt us.
Us long-time New Englanders have always known that granite is unstable. That's why New Hampshire is "the way that it is".
@Daemon_of_Waffle: It was a clear black night, a clear white moon,
Warren G was in the house, trying to defume
some ray to the D-on, emitted by the kitchen
so his skirts dont get no cancer cause nate dogg don't stand no bitchin'
Under current regulations, unprocessed items containing naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) are exempt from regulations. NORM is quite common, it is found in bricks, many rocks, kitty litter and other common items. The radiation levels are so low that even if you ate them, you would have no health effects from radiation.
P.S. I am a nuclear engineer.
@racermd: Actually, the danger posed from radon has nothing to do with lead. Yeah, too much lead in our systems could hurt us, but it's in fact the bursts of energy given off by the radon as it breaks down that could lead to lung cancer and ultimately death.
It's radiation poisoning, not lead poisoning, that a we need to worry about.
Couldn't they market this as a "feature"? Label them "Anti-Microbial" perhaps.
@suburbancowboy: "A stop sign is a regulation."
Several experiments have shown that traffic can move more efficiently and safely without traffic lights and stop signs. Kind of like when the power goes out in a town and everyone is extra-careful because none of the stoplights work.
Same thing with food regulation. If corporations were allowed to sell anything they wanted as food, the likely results would be people eating more locally from food sources they can identifiy and through seller reputation.
Sometimes our initial thoughts about regulation need reviewing.
Plus, if somebody's granite countertops are emitting levels that are dangerous, they have the ability to sue.
@cf27: Yes, but they have to find out that their granite is emitting radon in the first place. Even if someone does get some dangerous enough for it to make them sick they won't know until after the fact. Even then they wouldn't necessarily suspect the granite as the source. This isn't exactly common knowledge.
@Dobernala: It's no panacea but people get killed everyday in traffic accidents where people fly through stop signs and traffic lights. Some "experts" hypothesize that these regulatory items impart a false sense of trust where drivers assume the actions of others rather than actually paying attention.
@testsicles: Are you sure those experiments were with normal intersections? I can see roundabouts being more efficient, especially as people get used to them, but a normal cross intersection? I find that highly doubtful. I've been through intersections where the power went out and it wasn't fun.
There are dozens of things in your kitchen that are millions of times more likely to kill you than your countertops. The most likely way to die is simply falling down. Accidentally drinking the cleaning stuff underneath the sink is up there, as is eating something from the fridge that's gone bad.
To put it in perspective, drinking from BPA-coated bottles while sitting on your granite countertops for a few hundred thousand years increases your risk of death about as much as eating just one raw oyster.
But hey, it's good that the lawyers are on this one. They can help us sue the manufacturers, so we can all can take our winnings and go back to the familiar safety of our freeways, workplaces and extreme-sport vacations.
After watching all those episodes of flip that house I'm pretty sure everyone in CA is radioactive by now.
Re: Needing regulation - Y'all are f***ing kidding, right?!?
I don't even know where to start...
Uranium does occur naturally - and gets trapped inside everything in trace amounts - granite, concrete, top soil, wood.
It's not like they installed kitchen counters made out of pure Uranium...
We're still only talking about trace amounts of exposure.
You all do realize we are constantly exposed to background radiation from the earth and cosmic rays, don't you? That worrying about a couple extra micro REMs of exposure per year is nothing? Heck, radiation workers at nuclear plants are allowed to receive ~14x the normal background radiation per year. At these levels, the commonly quoted increased risk of long-term effects are ~0.1% chance of developing cancer.
The extra exposure from "unusually" radioactive granite? I'd say at most would be ~1% of normal background exposure.
By scaling, we're talking 0.0001% chance of long-term effects from kitchen countertops...
If you are that concerned about radiation:
1) Don't build a basement (Radon)
2) Don't stay indoors when it rains (causes concrete to off-gas)
3) Don't live anywhere near a coal plant (coal plants release more radiation to the environment than nuclear plants, do to natural uranium in the 80 rail-cars of coal they burn per day).
4) Don't fly on a plane (less atmospheric shielding, more exposure to cosmic rays).
5) Don't have any medical x-rays or CAT scans (one CAT scan >10x normal annual exposure)
6) Don't live in the Mid-west / Great Plains (higher background radiation levels)
I suggest you all read some actual scientific facts about radiation risks and nuclear power
A modern society can't function without some degree of regulation. I'm glad the government regulates some areas.
@KernelM: I thought the roundabouts were replacements for traffic lights at the busiest sections, such as in the town of Drachten.
Anyway, I don't know, just some article I read on the Internet, so, you know, it must be true. But it makes sense to me. If the Government suddenly said one night, that you no longer had to pay attention to Stop Signs and traffic lights, I'd be driving about 5 mph, tops, with my head on a swivel.
@cf27: So what you're saying is that consumers should have to buy a product, then determine that is has the potential to kill them, then sue the company that sold it to them, with ZERO guaranty of success (if you can't hold lead paint manufacturers accountable, why would the granite counter-top miners/manufacturers be?) and not only be out the thousands from installing the counter tops, but the thousands from the lawsuit, plus possibly have contracted a fatal disease...
If the industry is ALREADY developing methods, then why not simply put something concrete in writing? And if it is SELF-regulated, then no one is obligated to follow that protocol and people are still at risk of buying unclean granite.
That's the problem with people that object to any regulation... they don't care about anyone else. They'd rather people suffer first AND THEN make those people work to make themselves whole again, often against insurmountable odds. That's why I'm happy to see things like this happen to people that believe in the "all for yourself" mentality. Either they see the light (as I did) or they go down in flames... either way is fine with me...
Darn no edit. Don't think counter tops need to be regulated though
@nudger: Spoken like a laymen that has ZERO scientific experience but who DOES watch Fox News as his/her source for information...
You comment has ZERO credibility. Not just because it is blatantly wrong scientifically, but because your scenario assumes people KNOW that they are risking their health by installing granite counter tops and/or drinking from BPA lined products.
@asthecrowspins:
So THAT'S why all us New Hampshirites are so dang weird! Here I was thinking it was something that got slipped into the drinking water. It must be all this radioactive granite our houses are sitting on... our counter tops are made from... our front stairs, multiple state and large buildings, sidewalk and curb pieces, stairs and far too many other things to even think about made of granite. Doesn't seem to be a higher rate of cancer in the state correlating to the granite... but then again, maybe our types of granite are "safe"?
What I really want to know is, do we all glow in the dark? :3
Earth itself is radioactive. We will have to leave.
One of the problems with modern science is that we can detect things now that we weren't aware even existed before. (Oh noes! We buried Great Grandad under a radioactive tombstone!) Ignorance is bliss and in most cases not all that dangerous.
@testsicles: Ha - you read the Atlantic Monthly, too. @KernelM: Actually, the point is that, as compared to the UK (where there are far fewer road signs, stop signs, etc.) there are proportionally more accidents in the US because we are required to look at and read road signs rather than just drive our cars safely under the circumstances. Stopping and starting is more dangerous (and much more environmentally harmful) than moving at a constant speed. It may seem counterintuitive to the "safety conscious," but I think pulling out some stop signs and setting more lights to blinking yellow is worthy of serious consideration.
To get back on topic, though: Separate and apart from Radon gas that may enter a home through natural processes -- if someone is installing natural stone countertops that contain minerals that emit ionizing radiation, that seems to be something to consider regulating to the exent that the amounts involved exceed recommended safe exposure levels. Perhaps residential buidling codes need to contemplate banning natural stone use if there's a real risk there.
I wonder if I could get these radioactive countertops purposely, like for keeping food warm before it's served.
@rellog: True, which is why a better tactic than regulation is education.
A regulatory agency might do some good, but I think in the long run there needs to be more certification programs in the industry. If granite countertops are known to be sources of radiation, then some contractors need to band together and form a certification program that explains that part of their purchase and installation procedure is to inspect the product for harmful radiation and other quality measures.
Private certification would be about as effective as regulating radiation at the quarry. Though both working together would be best, I don't stand behind layers of regulation controlled by who knows what interests. I'd prefer an industry-backed standard, like the Kosher seal, or at most regulation requiring either contractors or homeowners to test their countertops and other products for radiation.
Everyone would be jumping right on the regulation wagon if it was in the name of the War on Terror.
Granite Countertops: Fuel For Dirty Bombs?
There, now can we regulate it?
There is no danger from these granite counter tops. I have a Ph.D. in the field of radiology.
Radon, maybe. But the granite double the value of the kitchen. Fabulous!
@jjeefff: assuming it's granite. What if one of those mining companies can't tell the difference between radioactive ore and granite?
@ironchef: Assuming the mining companies are not purifying the rock they mine to purposely increase the Uranium content (as the Iranians are famously doing now) then there is no danger that they will accidentally dig up anything with a dangerous level of radioactivity.
that would explain why my kitchen was so bright at night...
I want to point out that the articles compare the radiation levels in the granite to the recommended radiation levels from gaseous radon. A radioactive gas is far more dangerous because it is inhaled and can remain in your lungs. Granite is not inhaled and thus the radiation source remains much further from your internal organs and for a shorter time. As soon as you walk away from the granite, your exposure stops.
New Hampshire is the Granite State. You know the Old Man of the Mountain, the guy on the New Hampshire Quarter? Well, his freakin' face fell off! Musta been the uranium. That's why the license plates read LIVE FREE OR GLOW.
There has been a long association between granite, an igneous rock, and radon.
For an unbiased report see the posting by Idaho State U Physics dept. on the subject.
That probably will tell you more than you wanted to know, but the fellows at Al's Snug Cafe (with genuine granite table tops) might be impressed.
'David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, said the cancer risk from granite countertops, even those emitting radiation above background levels, is "on the order of one in a million." Being struck by lightning is more likely.'
Isn't David Brenner the Incredible Hulk? Seems like his opinion on radiation might be a little bit questionable.
Maybe there's something already on the books, but I have to say this type of situation begs for a regulation. Those pulling the granite from the ground (or importing) should be required to measure radioactivity levels and should be banned from selling anything above the recommended norm.
Que the morons that will blame the consumer for not knowing the counter-top was radioactive before they bought it...