California workplace safety officials moved Thursday toward a first-in-the-nation ban on fabrication and installation of quartz countertop materials, in a bid to halt a deadly epidemic among workers exposed to toxic dust from cutting, polishing and installing the popular kitchen and bathroom furnishing.
Thursday’s vote by the Cal/OSHA Standards Board came at the end of an all-day hearing in Sacramento, where workers with silicosis, doctors and representatives from the artificial stone industry spoke.
The board’s decision on the ban also directed Cal/OSHA to form an advisory committee including health experts, worker advocates and representatives from fabrication shops and the artificial stone industry. The agency is also to form a scientific subcommittee, with both groups studying the issue in parallel to the rule-making on the ban.
The ban is not immediate. The board directed Cal/OSHA to begin rule-making while advisory and scientific committees examine whether anything short of prohibition could adequately protect workers.
The escalation of what the California Department of Public Health describes as an epidemic of silicosis from artificial stone has paralleled skyrocketing sales of the material in recent years, Cal/OSHA Board Chair Joseph Alioto said during the hearing. Alioto called Cal/OSHA’s artificial-stone rules, imposed as an “emergency temporary standard” in 2023, a “failed effort,” with inspections revealing 94% of fabrication shops were out of compliance.
A “silicosis dashboard” run by the Department of Public Health shows that as of May 22, 562 workers have contracted the incurable disease from working with artificial stone in the state since 2019, and 31 have died. Nearly five dozen patients needed lung transplants, a procedure that medical experts say typically buys only a few years of life.
State public health officials estimated in 2023 that of the 4,000 people working in stone-fabrication shops throughout the state, up to 850 — 1 in 5 workers — would get silicosis, with as many as 160 dying.
Health experts say there’s no danger from installed countertops, just from breathing dust made during processing.
Industry leaders said the board’s move goes too far.
“Many shops already use these products safely and legally,” Matt Thurston, western U.S. director for Spanish artificial stone giant Cosentino, told the board. “If a business cannot afford to protect its workers, big or small, it should not be allowed to operate.”
And, Thurston added, “Banning a product to compensate for failed enforcement is irresponsible.”
But James Nevin, a lawyer whose Novato firm Brayton Purcell represents more than 100 Bay Area workers, and hundreds more from around the state who contracted silicosis from turning slabs of quartz — also referred to as artificial or engineered stone — into countertops, praised the board’s move.
“I would estimate about 1 million workers’ lives will be saved, because California is such a large market that what California does, the other states will do, and typically other countries will do,” Nevin said, referring to the total global impact of a ban in California.
Cal/OSHA lacks authority to ban the sale of quartz slabs, but prohibiting their fabrication and installation effectively bans them, Nevin said in an interview, adding that he expects companies to pivot toward selling countertops made with recycled glass.
Workers contract the disease from breathing tiny particles of silica dust and other toxins that spew out in clouds during cutting and polishing, or are released into the air when dust caught during water-based processing dries in workplaces and on clothing and is disturbed.
Ruby Lopez, whose husband Mynor Lopez contracted silicosis from fabricating quartz countertops, took aim at the industry during Thursday’s hearing.
“How can you sleep at night knowing that a lot of people died … when there’s other products out there that can be used to prevent this from happening to families, leaving children without their fathers, and wives without their husbands, moms without their kids?” Lopez said.
Claudia Lopez de Esquivel told the board she was diagnosed with silicosis two years ago, despite minimal exposure to silica dust.
“I was never spending much time in the workshop, and I wasn’t even cutting materials myself,” she said.
Silicosis causes “a very painful death,” said Dr. Jane Fazio, a UCLA professor of medicine, who described the epidemic as “endless human suffering.”
Demetrio Luna, a silicosis patient who underwent a lung transplant, tearfully told the board, “Only you can stop this.”
Quartz countertops often cost around the same as granite, and less than marble. Metals and resins added to pulverized quartz to manufacture the raw slabs help make the product uniquely toxic, experts told the Cal/OSHA board Thursday.
The board’s decision came in response to a December petition by the Western Occupational and Environmental Medicine Association urging Cal/OSHA to ban all fabrication and installation of artificial stone containing more than 1% crystalline silica. The proposed ban uses the 1% threshold.
The association, made up of more than 600 doctors and health and safety experts, argued that regulations and practices intended to reduce workers’ exposure are insufficient to prevent silicosis, because no practical ways exist to protect workers. Safer substitutes are on the market, including in Australia, which has banned artificial stone products having 1% or more crystalline silica, the group said.
Nevin told the board that even in “sophisticated shops” with robust worker protections, “we are seeing an epidemic of disease.”
At Thursday’s hearing, association representative Dr. Robert Blink said even when workers wear masks and cut the material under flowing water to avoid creating dust clouds, “people are still getting sick.”
Blink, like many medical experts who spoke, urged the board to direct Cal/OSHA to ban processing of artificial stone as soon as possible, without additional study.
“Is it a risk worth taking to let the death clock tick?” Blink said.
Since December, “every day a worker is being diagnosed with silicosis and every month a worker is dying,” San Francisco lawyer Raphael Metzger, who, like Nevin, represents large numbers of workers with silicosis who are suing artificial stone manufacturers and vendors, told the board.
Makers and vendors of quartz countertops targeted in legal actions are responding with their own lawsuits against fabrication shops that employed the workers, arguing the shop owners are responsible for unsafe exposures.
Although many manufacturers have started rolling out alternatives containing less of the dangerous silica, the industry rejects claims that the high-silica products can’t be handled safely. They blame workers and fabrication shops for failing to take necessary precautions, and California regulators for not enforcing protective measures.
James Hieb, CEO of the Natural Stone Institute, which represents sellers of both natural and artificial stone products, told the board that anti-silicosis rules Cal/OSHA has already imposed have worked. “There are employers who are transforming their organizations, creating a culture of safety,” Hieb said.
Quartz countertops have grown into an $18.4 billion global market — with nearly half of slab sales occurring in North America — thanks to durability, ease of maintenance and varied color options, according to Market Research Future.
A December memo to the board from Cal/OSHA staff said “prohibition of work with artificial stone that contains more than 1% crystalline silica appears to be the only way to protect workers from contracting a terminal disease.”
Board chair Alioto said the committees working in parallel with rule-making for a ban must examine whether alternatives to a ban exist.
“Regulatory bodies like ours are under attack in the courts,” Alioto said. “If we make (a decision) based on facts that are not established on the record, then that decision can be attacked in the court as arbitrary and capricious.”
Cal/OSHA declined to answer questions about how long it might take to impose a ban and what effect committee findings might have on the ban process. Attorney Nevin said he expected the prohibition to be phased in, no matter what conclusions either committee reaches. The timeline for a ban and the final impact of the committees’ work remain unclear.
Dr. Sheiphali Gandhi, a UC San Francisco professor of medicine identified by Cal/OSHA as a potential member of the scientific advisory subcommittee, called the board’s decision “very good news.” But she noted a ban would not immediately end the suffering and death from silicosis, because the disease can take hold even after workers stop breathing silica dust.
“We will continue to see new cases despite what we do because of the number of people that have been exposed through the years,” Gandhi said. “This is the way we can get the number of cases to level off.”