ShareThisWhen The Sacramento Bee published a blurb last month about legislation that would remove serpentine as California's "state rock," it was snidely portrayed by political bloggers and radio talkers as a symbol of the Legislature's foolish fiddling while ignoring more important matters.
"While needy families and the state infrastructure are neglected, (Gloria) Romero wants a debate on rocks," the website Foolocracy snapped.
There is, however, more than symbolism in Sen. Gloria Romero's Senate Bill 624.
Its declarations, geologists say, are scientifically incorrect. And if it's enacted, it could open new avenues for litigation, which explains why lawyers who pursue asbestos suits are pushing it.
Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, says it's aimed at "raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. Serpentine contains asbestos, a known carcinogen. Toxic materials have no place serving as emblems for the state."
The bill flatly declares that "serpentine contains the deadly mineral chrysotile asbestos, a known carcinogen, exposure to which increases the risk of the cancer mesothelioma (and) California has the highest rate of mesothelioma deaths in the nation."
SB 624 cleared the Senate on a 36-0 vote on May 18, but at that stage it merely defined "anaerobic digestion," referring to composting. One day later, Romero removed its contents and replaced them with the serpentine provisions, a maneuver commonly used to slip something through with minimal notice.
Romero's office says the language originated with the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, an anti-asbestos group whose major sponsors are law firms specializing in asbestos litigation. Asbestos litigators and Consumer Attorneys of California are backing the bill. Eric Bailey, a spokesman for the group, says the bill is a "symbolic measure to correct this historic mistake."
The problem with SB 624 is that it flatly equates serpentine with deadly asbestos even though geologists say that's incorrect. Geology websites have been buzzing with the criticism, pointing out that while serpentine rocks may contain chrysotile, most do not.
"It occurs in serpentine sometimes," says Garry Hayes, a Modesto Junior College geology teacher and former regional president of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
Were SB 624 to become law, declaring serpentine as carcinogenic, it could widen the opportunities for lawsuits against owners of property with naturally occurring outcroppings of serpentine. And it's become a new skirmish in the perennial war between personal injury lawyers and the business-backed Civil Justice Association of California.
"I've heard that personal injury lawyers will leave no stone unturned in their hunt for new cases, but this is ridiculous," said John Sullivan, the association's president.
(E-mail Dan Walters at dwalters(at)sacbee.com. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service
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Asbestos
I am a biologist and a research biochemist specializing in natural occurring (NOA) “asbestos” in California. The legislature is a day late (meaning decades late) and a dollar short (meaning, well more) and working on the complete wrong subject. ADAO is not intentionally misleading, but they as a group are misleading. Natural occurring forms of asbestos occur in all states in the ground from soft friable easily airborne to hard rock hard to blow up with dynamite. In California communities have lived on all forms of natural occurring Chrysotile “asbestos” for well over 200 years. Intensive studies of death certificates shows no excess lung cancer or any excess mesothelioma at Chrysotile sites at all. San Francisco is the most contaminated Chrysotile city on earth. Yet small communities in California, inside El Dorado, Amador, Toulomne, who have lived on Tremolite asbestos deposits for only short periods, show large quantities of excess mesothelioma. Not just in humans but in animals too. Huge levels of death from a non serpentine NOA. This news regarding Tremolite was published in the newspapers, mostly front page news, in Sacramento for 8 years straight! What do the legislators do? Why they OK “asbestos” epidemics by refusing to address the problem, and they condemn the innocent serpentine rock without even realizing what they are doing. For those who don’t know, this exact same subject has nearly killed entire communities in the United States. Groups such as ADAO focusing on Chrysotile “asbestos” to the exclusion of the far more dangerous forms of “asbestos” have lead to the communities of Libby Montana and Jefferson Parish Louisiana having enormous non serpentine epidemics of human death. The legislators could actually do something useful here, but not while they are mislead by non scientists such as ADAO.
Let’s make fibrous Tremolite our State Rock!!