Serpentinite is California’s state rock. It can contain naturally-occuring asbestos.
Shipyard artist Jack Hain says he just wants his rocks back. Serpentinite rocks, that is.
And getting these rocks back appears to be the crux of the case that Hain has filed in Superior Court against Lennar. That and the question of whether it’s OK to move materials from one part of shipyard to another.
But unlike the other shipyard-related cases involving Lennar, Hain isn’t worried about possible health risks from the serpentinite, which can contain naturally-occuring asbestos.
Veins of chrysotile, or other members of the asbestos family, can run through serpentinite rock, making it a toxic health hazard, if crushed, dug or otherwise quarried and excavated.
That’s because, says Hain, he wasn’t crushing or grading the rocks, but simply moving them across the yard.
Hain sued Lennar Communities and Lennar BVHP on May 15, 2008 in Superior Court, a month before residents sued the developer and two of its shipyard subcontractors, CH2M Hill and Gordon N. Ball, and five weeks before Lennar sued one of its subcontractors, CH2M Hill, for failure to monitor and control asbestos dust.
But unlike those suits, which center around Lennar’s failure to protect the community from naturally-occurring asbestos, while digging into a hillside full of serpentinite, Hain’s suit centers around the fact that Lennar removed three serpentinite rocks from an art work that Hain was building outside his studio in Building 116 on Parcel B of the Shipyard. (That’s the parcel where the Navy is currently proposing revisions to its original plan for radiological, soil and groundwater clean up.)
Map of areas under radiologically investigation at Hunters Point Shipyard.