The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, September 07, 2008

A new state audit says Georgia’s Public Service Commission does a poor job licensing in-state moving companies and doesn’t enforce safeguards designed to protect customers from getting ripped off.

As a result, fly-by-night movers can lure customers with low prices and later demand more money once they have the customer’s furniture on their trucks, according to the Georgia Movers’ Association and the Better Business Bureau. Unlicensed companies also have damaged property, then couldn’t be found later by frustrated customers, according to complaints filed with the state.

Auditors, legitimate movers, the Better Business Bureau and burned customers say the situation is a mess.

“The activities of the Public Service Commission do not adequately protect consumers,” according to the report, adding the commission does little to ensure movers are “financially viable, technically competent” and “providing safe and reliable service.”

The PSC, headed by five commissioners elected to six-year terms, is the state’s consumer watchdog agency for various industries, including utilities and transportation. Regulating in-state movers is a small part of its duties. The federal government licenses movers who cross state lines.

During a routine audit, the state Audits and Accounts Department found:

• 47 percent of the in-state moving companies advertising in metro Atlanta did not have the required state license;

• The commission has only one full-time position devoted to licensing and monitoring an industry that the Georgia Movers’ Association said handled 77,000 moves last year;

• The commission does not do enough to punish unlicensed companies or to investigate complaints. It has imposed some fines, but not enough, auditors say.

• Enforcement is so weak that getting a license — in which companies complete state safety training, pay a fee and provide proof of insurance and bonding — is “essentially voluntary.”

• Applications that are submitted, including proof of insurance, are not verified.

“They don’t really have the resources at this point to track down the unlicensed movers,” said Leslie McGuire, who oversaw the audit. She described the moving business as “one of the more problematic industries.”

Eloise Drane, 33, of Grayson said she and her husband hired movers last fall. She said the company was listed in the telephone directory and she just assumed they were licensed. The company offered a quote over the telephone and assured her there would be no extra fees. But when the movers showed up, they tacked on extra fees. They also damaged a railing in the house. The movers were so slow and so bad that her frustrated husband finally told them to leave, Drane said. They had to pay the movers and later had to pay for the damaged railing.

“We thought hiring movers would save us headaches,” she said. “It ended up costing us more money.”

The company could not be found in current telephone directories or on the commission’s Web site listing licensed movers.

“When I tried to get anybody to speak to me about the situation, no one called me back, nothing,” Drane said.

She filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Atlanta, which sent the complaint to the state. The commission has listed the company on its illegal movers list.

“We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have,” PSC Commissioner Robert Baker Jr. said. “If we had more full-time, budgeted positions or more money, sure we could do a much better job. … But we don’t have those resources.”

Baker said part of the reason there are so many unlicensed movers is that until 2007, Georgia law allowed movers operating in only a single county or municipality to be exempt from PSC regulation.

The audit report called for changes in how the commission handles licenses and how it investigates complaints. The report called for a crackdown on unlicensed movers, using existing penalties in state law. Auditors reported that the commission posts companies and complaints against them on its Web site, but does not check if complaints are valid.

Lee Lemke, who heads an association that represents about 125 moving companies across the state, said his group wants the state to go after unlicensed moving companies because they hurt the industry’s reputation and undercut licensed businesses. The commission has about 290 companies licensed statewide.

“They are giving us all a bad name,” he said. “If they do not have a license, if they do not have insurance, they should not be operating.”

Gary Puntasecca, president of Premium Moving & Storage in Marietta, said his licensed business has to compete with “price cutting of the rogue movers.”

He said the commission could go a long way toward reducing the problem by meting out some fines.

“If you nail a few of them, it would scare a lot of them off.”

Alpharetta, 7/30/08: W. Scott Berlyoung of Alpha Home Services, a local firm based in Alpharetta which conducts inspections of new and existing homes, was honored recently by the American Society of Home Inspectors for 5 years of membership. Scott has been an ASHI Certified Inspector since 2003.
The American Society of Home Inspectors, founded in 1976, is the oldest, largest and most respected international professional organization of independent home inspectors in North America. Its Standards of Practice and strict Code of Ethics are benchmarks of professional performance in the field.
To become an ASHI Certified Inspector, an inspector must meet rigorous professional and technical requirements, including the successful completion of two comprehensive exams. In addition, he or she must perform at least 250 fee-paid home inspections that meet or exceed the ASHI Standards of Practice.
W. Scott Berlyoung has been an inspector for 9 years, and is the current treasurer of the local Georgia ASHI chapter. He conducts pre-purchase inspections and consultations in the Greater Atlanta area as well as property management and radon testing. Further information about ASHI or consulting/inspection service’s are available by calling 404.374.0747 or by visiting the inspector’s web site at www.alphahomeservices.com.

SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.
“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.
“My first thought was, my pregnant daughter was coming for the weekend,” Dr. Sugarman said. When the technician told her to keep her daughter several feet from the countertops just to be safe, she said, “I had them ripped out that very day,” and sent to the state Department of Health for analysis. The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. “The health risk to me and my family was probably small,” Dr. Sugarman said, “but I felt it was an unnecessary risk.”
As the popularity of granite countertops has grown in the last decade — demand for them has increased tenfold, according to the Marble Institute of America, a trade group representing granite fabricators — so have the types of granite available. For example, one source, Graniteland (graniteland.com) offers more than 900 kinds of granite from 63 countries. And with increased sales volume and variety, there have been more reports of “hot” or potentially hazardous countertops, particularly among the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia.
“It’s not that all granite is dangerous,” said Stanley Liebert, the quality assurance director at CMT Laboratories in Clifton Park, N.Y., who took radiation measurements at Dr. Sugarman’s house. “But I’ve seen a few that might heat up your Cheerios a little.”
Allegations that granite countertops may emit dangerous levels of radon and radiation have been raised periodically over the past decade, mostly by makers and distributors of competing countertop materials. The Marble Institute of America has said such claims are “ludicrous” because although granite is known to contain uranium and other radioactive materials like thorium and potassium, the amounts in countertops are not enough to pose a health threat.
Indeed, health physicists and radiation experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at extremely low levels. They say these emissions are insignificant compared with so-called background radiation that is constantly raining down from outer space or seeping up from the earth’s crust, not to mention emanating from manmade sources like X-rays, luminous watches and smoke detectors.
But with increasing regularity in recent months, the Environmental Protection Agency has been receiving calls from radon inspectors as well as from concerned homeowners about granite countertops with radiation measurements several times above background levels. “We’ve been hearing from people all over the country concerned about high readings,” said Lou Witt, a program analyst with the agency’s Indoor Environments Division.
Last month, Suzanne Zick, who lives in Magnolia, Tex., a small town northwest of Houston, called the E.P.A. and her state’s health department to find out what she should do about the salmon-colored granite she had installed in her foyer a year and a half ago. A geology instructor at a community college, she realized belatedly that it could contain radioactive material and had it tested. The technician sent her a report indicating that the granite was emitting low to moderately high levels of both radon and radiation, depending on where along the stone the measurement was taken.
“I don’t really know what the numbers are telling me about my risk,” Ms. Zick said. “I don’t want to tear it out, but I don’t want cancer either.”
The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day. In Dr. Sugarman’s kitchen, the readings were 100 picocuries per liter. In her basement, where radon readings are expected to be higher because the gas usually seeps into homes from decaying uranium underground, the readings were 6 picocuries per liter.
The average person is subjected to radiation from natural and manmade sources at an annual level of 360 millirem (a measure of energy absorbed by the body), according to government agencies like the E.P.A. and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The limit of additional exposure set by the commission for people living near nuclear reactors is 100 millirem per year. To put this in perspective, passengers get 3 millirem of cosmic radiation on a flight from New York to Los Angeles.
A “hot” granite countertop like Dr. Sugarman’s might add a fraction of a millirem per hour and that is if you were a few inches from it or touching it the entire time.
Nevertheless, Mr. Witt said, “There is no known safe level of radon or radiation.” Moreover, he said, scientists agree that “any exposure increases your health risk.” A granite countertop that emits an extremely high level of radiation, as a small number of commercially available samples have in recent tests, could conceivably expose body parts that were in close proximity to it for two hours a day to a localized dose of 100 millirem over just a few months.
David J. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, said the cancer risk from granite countertops, even those emitting radiation above background levels, is “on the order of one in a million.” Being struck by lightning is more likely. Nonetheless, Dr. Brenner said, “It makes sense. If you can choose another counter that doesn’t elevate your risk, however slightly, why wouldn’t you?”
Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking and is considered especially dangerous to smokers, whose lungs are already compromised. Children and developing fetuses are vulnerable to radiation, which can cause other forms of cancer. Mr. Witt said the E.P.A. is not studying health risks associated with granite countertops because of a “lack of resources.”
The Marble Institute of America plans to develop a testing protocol for granite. “We want to reassure the public that their granite countertops are safe,” Jim Hogan, the group’s president, said earlier this month “We know the vast majority of granites are safe, but there are some new exotic varieties coming in now that we’ve never seen before, and we need to use sound science to evaluate them.”
Research scientists at Rice University in Houston and at the New York State Department of Health are currently conducting studies of granite widely used in kitchen counters. William J. Llope, a professor of physics at Rice, said his preliminary results show that of the 55 samples he has collected from nearby fabricators and wholesalers, all of which emit radiation at higher-than-background levels, a handful have tested at levels 100 times or more above background.
Personal injury lawyers are already advertising on the Web for clients who think they may have been injured by countertops. “I think it will be like the mold litigation a few years back, where some cases were legitimate and a whole lot were not,” said Ernest P. Chiodo, a physician and lawyer in Detroit who specializes in toxic tort law. His kitchen counters are granite, he said, “but I don’t spend much time in the kitchen.”
As for Dr. Sugarman, the contractor of the house she bought in Lake George paid for the removal of her “hot” countertops. She replaced them with another type of granite. “But I had them tested first,” she said.

ROSWELL — Roswell has partnered with the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District in the Toilet Rebate Program to allow residential water customers the opportunity to apply for either a $50 or a $100 rebate if they have installed a new, low flow toilet in their residence. Toilet rebates are limited.

Roswell customers should meet these criteria:

• Have an individual residential account with Roswell and be up to date on payments.

• Own or rent a single-family home built in 1993 or earlier

• Purchase an approved toilet after Sept. 28, 2007 to replace an older toilet using greater than 1.6 gallons per flush.

• Agree to a verification visit.

• Agree to complete a survey.

Criteria making customers ineligible for the rebate include:

• Customers who have already received a rebate.

• Customers of utilities not participating in the program.

• Customers who own or rent a single-family home built after 1993.

• Customers who purchased a toilet before Sept. 28, 2007.

• Customers who have a 1.6 gallons per flush or less toilet.

• Customers living in a multi-family residence or non-residential customers.

For information on how to apply for the rebate, visit www.northgeorgiawater.org/toiletrebate and download the application form. Customers may also call 404-463-8645.

DECATUR – Beginning Sunday in DeKalb County, any house built before 1993 and sold will have to have low-flow toilets that consume 1.6 gallons of water or less per flush.

Low-flow toilets became mandatory in new construction around 1993, which is why officials picked that year. The county still has as many as 165,000 houses built before 1993, but no one knows how many have been upgraded with toilets that use less water.

The low-flow requirement is one thing the county is using to cope with the drought.