solidsurfacealliance.org Blog

I hope you don’t find one, but it you do it can be handled. Unless you sell a lot of exotics, you won’t have many bad tops. If you do find one, there are three Issues.
Who pays for tearing it out?
What do I do with it once it is torn out?
What kind of liability am I facing?

Let’s look at them one by one.
Who pays for tearing it out?
You do, and if you are very lucky, all it will cost you is a new granite countertop. If you wait till a lawyer makes you take it out, it will cost you ten times more, or a thousand times more. Even if you forget about doing the right thing, you will still want to remove a hot top out of self interest.
We sold some granite before we had the equipment to test, so we stayed with granites that had been shown to be low in previous scientific tests. Had we know how much granite slabs could vary, we most likely wouldn’t have sold till we had a meter. First thing we did when we got our meters was check our old scrap that we had kept for that very reason (had to learn what type of meter to buy, it took months to learn).
Had I sold a hot one, I would have gone back to the customer and told them it had to be replaced. I would have looked to my slab supplier for free replacement slabs, I would have eaten the labor and overhead. Only fair way I can see of dealing with this.

What to do with it once it is torn out?
Depends on how hot it is and what state you live in. Some states have laws on this stuff (NORM or TE NORM). In our state, there is no law, but if it was really hot, hazardous disposal companies will accept the material. Break it up (mask, gloves, and disposable chem hazard suit), put it in steel barrels, and ship it to the haz mat company. It will be expensive.
If it was under, say five times background, the local land fill might take it. Of course some landfills have radiation detectors that will go off over certain levels, you might get your load of granite quarantined till the state rad dept checks it over.
We are working with a new nuclear fuel processor on a possible method of grinding any high level waste into beach sand size chunks, then the sand can be ran through their processor and turned into Uranium Fuel for a nuclear power plant. Lot of things will have to be ironed out, govt permission obtained on all of this, but by 2011, this could be a method of disposal. Other fuel processors might do this as well, not for free, there will be some costs of grinding, transporting and processing, but the cost will be offset by what fuel is obtained from the rock.
Most likely, only the highest levels of stone, say 60 ppm and up, will be processed into nuclear fuel. Some will be border line, can be processed, but will cost almost as much as hazardous waste disposal.
What kind of liability am I facing?
I don’t know. One can take the emitted radiation, figure a dose/risk ration, and get a chance of cancer per thousand people exposed. What you can’t measure is how the consumer is going to react when they found out you sold them a radioactive countertop. Some will freak out, some will be very angry, some will call their lawyer, some will be understanding and accept a tear out and replacement. If the first three scenarios play out, they might have someone else tear out the top, figuring on someone else replacing it. After all, they will want the top for evidence.
Even if you tear out the top, mark it and document the stuffing out of it. Save at least three 12″ x 12″ sections. Hot, medium, and low levels. It might be prudent to save the entire top if you can store it away from human contact, a field or an used building, with it clearly marked. Keep it a few years, but keep the samples forever. People might accept a replacement and call it even, till one of them develops health problems. Save the evidence.
Some shops will rush out and hire a lawyer for advice, which is a good thing. Make sure the lawyer has some experience in these specific matters, or hire a consultant to bring them up to speed. No doubt if you replace a top, you will attempt to get some sort of document signed by the homeowner, but there are some rights that can not be signed away, especially if the people are not 100% educated on what rights they are throwing away.
And children, those under 18 years of age, can never sign away rights, nor can their parents sign away the children’s rights. A judge and jury will always restore those rights. So get legal advice, but do the right thing regardless of the cost. If something should happen later, a judge and jury will look more favorably on you