It takes real effort to impugn the reputation of an inanimate object, but there is a movement gaining traction in Sacramento to strip the California state rock of its lofty title for what geologists say is a trifling offense: It contains asbestos.
The stone in question, serpentine, has been the state rock since 1965, but a group led by Sen. Gloria Romero, D-East Los Angeles, wants it removed from the symbols list because it often contains the carcinogen linked to 2,500 deaths a year in the United States.
Romero has introduced SB624, which would strip the olive green stone of its title, but she is now running up against a gaggle of geologists and natural history buffs who have removed their spectacles, thrown down their lab coats and are rallying to the rock's defense.
Serpentine, they say, is intricately linked to California's tumultuous geologic history, was closely associated with gold deposits during the Gold Rush, provides habitat for rare plants and insects and, last but not least, is beautiful.
"It's a wonderful state rock because it has got this great natural, social and scientific history in California," said Jon Christensen, an environmental historian who is the executive director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. "It is found all over the world, but it is especially associated with continental margins where tectonic forces and subduction have been strongest, like California."
...They claim Romero's bill wrongly states that all serpentine contains cancer-causing chrysotile asbestos. In fact, naturally occurring asbestos that remains undisturbed in the ground presents no risk, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
According to part of the article I posted, the EPA says that undisturbed, naturally occurring asbestos presents no risk.
