Posted on 09/25/2004 6:14:40 PM PDT by yooper
Hope someone can help me with this. I work for a municipal government in Michigan. One of my duties is to review planned property developments within the city.
This week I received a proposal from a land owner who wishes to develop a large tract of land (no Monty Python jokes please) into what he referred to as a "Green" cemetery. I've done a little web research on the subject and I have noted that a "Green" cemetery seems to be a place where enviro-whackos reserve spots for burials within a park setting. However, the places I found on the web are all sites which are looking to sell plots.
I live in a sparsely populated area, so I am not familiar with the specifics of such a cemetery. Can anyone here give me some feedback on personal experiences with a "Green" cemetery, and specifically any negatives I need to be aware of when I presnt a report on the land owner's request?
If they really wanted to help, they should be cremated. Do you have any idea how much energy it costs to build a coffin?
A Soylent factory?
IIRC, it means cheap wooden or heavy paperboard coffins and no embalming fluid. The basic idea being to break the corpse down quickly.
cemetery with no head stones?
Congressman Billybob
Well there could be problems with groundwater contamination if the soil is sandy and there are shallow aquifers.
That doesn't sound like a bad idea, tbh.
If you are going to be buried, why not be buried in something that will disintegrate quickly.
Cemeteries are unsustainable according to the United Nations Global Biodiversity Assessment. They feel that all humans should be cremated, except for the very elite, because they don't like the idea of humans leaving any trace on the earth. The next best thing is biodegradable coffins so humans do not persist in cemeteries.
***
Brothers seek parents' farm for 'green' cemetery, but Florida regulators may object
GLENDALE, Fla. (AP) — C.O. and Laura Wilkerson made it clear they wanted simple burials when they died. No funeral home. No embalming. No fancy caskets — just pine boxes.
They also wanted their two sons to preserve the family farm that includes ponds, streams and woodlands in Glendale, a hamlet of 150 people in the Florida Panhandle.
"Boys, this is a beautiful piece of property, please don't let it become a mobile home park,'' John Wilkerson, 54, recalled his parents saying.
He and brother William Wilkerson, 53, are trying to honor both wishes by turning the 350-acre farm into a nature preserve doubling as Florida's first — the nation's second — cemetery solely for environment-friendly "green'' burials.
State regulators, however, may stand in the way of plans for Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve.
The Wilkersons want to prohibit embalming and the vaults that encase coffins. Caskets would be biodegradable. Markers would be small natural stones. Native wildflowers and wiregrass _ grasses with tough wiry roots or rootstocks, like Bermuda grass _ would make mowing, pesticides and herbicides unnecessary.
"Adding organic material back to the earth in a nonpolluted form is what sustains life itself,'' said David Schroeder, an Augusta, Ga., landscape architect who is doing the preserve's master plan.
A green burial also would save money, John Wilkerson said. He figures it would cost no more than $2,500, including plot and wooden coffin _ about half the average price for a funeral in the United States, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.
The concept appeals to retired Detroit auto worker Ford Sims, 67, of Destin. He hopes Glendale will be his final resting place so his six children will not have to spend their inheritance to bury him.
"I've learned that it's fairly expensive to just die,'' Sims said. "From my perspective, if you put me six feet under in a gunny sack, I'm happy.''
The Wilkerson brothers abided by their parents' wishes when their father died in 1996 and their mother three years later. Both had green burials in the Glendale Presbyterian Church's cemetery, surrounded on three sides by their farm.
Positive reaction from family and friends prompted more research that led the brothers to Memorial Ecosystems, which runs the nation's first green burial cemetery on the Ramsey Creek Preserve at Westminster, S.C.
The company was founded by Dr. Billy Campbell, a physician, and his wife, Kimberley, a native of England, which has about 100 green burial cemeteries.
The Wilkersons consulted the Campbells and then hired Schroeder, who wrote his master's thesis at North Carolina State University on ecologically sustainable cemeteries.
His design will be part of an application to the Florida Board of Funeral and Cemetery Services.
But Phillip Coleman, executive director of the Funeral Cemetery Alliance of Florida, a trade association, doubted the board would accept burials without liners to keep graves from caving in as bodies and coffins decay.
"It's just a maintenance nightmare,'' said Coleman, a former cemetery owner from Miami. "Their concept sounds good, but it's not practical.''
Coleman said the vaults prevent visitors from being injured by falling into sinking graves. Schroeder, however, said conventional cemeteries want liners for another reason.
"The lawn mowers can't go over that little divot as nicely, so they require you to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on these cement vaults,'' he said.
Schroeder said embalming is a hazard because toxic fluids can leak from graves and pollute ground water. Coleman contended the chemicals are too diluted to harm the environment.
State board chairman Greg Brudnicki, who is in the cemetery business in Panama City, questioned whether a small, rural community could meet a state requirement to show a need for the cemetery. John Wilkerson said it would attract clientele from a 100-mile radius.
Brudnicki also said embalming may be necessary for bodies that are viewed to prevent the spread of disease. The Wilkersons maintain state law permits refrigeration instead.
"Everybody's got access to an ice chest full of ice,'' John Wilkerson said. "Put it in some plastic bags and pack it under grandpa.''
The brothers also want to copy Memorial Ecosystems by putting aside 10 percent of profits for maintenance, 10 percent for buying more land and 5 percent for watershed management.
For that reason, they want to seek an exemption from state requirements for a $5,000 application fee and $50,000 maintenance fund with 10 percent of every plot sale also going into the fund.
The requirements are in state law and cannot be waived unless the Legislature changes it, said Timothy Wheaton of the state Bureau of Funeral and Cemetery Services. He doubted lawmakers would do so.
"We have too many problems with care and maintenance,'' Wheaton said.
The brothers have hired a lawyer and may take their case to the Legislature.
"We're going to do it somehow,'' John Wilkerson said. "If we have to play the state game 100 percent, we'll do so.''
___
On the Net:
Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve:
www.glendalenaturepreserve.org
Memorial Ecosystems:
www.memorialecosystems.com
http://www.earthboundfarm.com/news-world/GreenCemetary.html
A cemetary where no embalming fluid or metals are buried would make a very nice garden!
...cemetery, even.
I think this is what the leftist at UC Davis in Davis, Ca. called a green cemetery !
Cemetery closed to dogs
By Beth Curda/Enterprise staff writer
Dogs and their owners will have to bid farewell next month to the portion of the Davis Cemetery they have come to know as a play area.
The Davis City Council and Davis Cemetery Board this week decided to discontinue the arrangement they have had that converted an unused 10 acres of the cemetery property into an off-leash park for dogs. The council voted during its meeting Tuesday to let the lease expire and to pursue an environmental analysis of Core Area Pond as a potential dog park.
The Cemetery Board took a few additional steps during its meeting Wednesday, board chairman Val Dolcini said today:
* Effective June 1, dogs are not allowed off leash anywhere in the cemetery;
* Dogs on their leashes must stay on the paved roadway;
* An orange plastic fence (similar to those seen at construction sites) will protect the area from dog use and allow the native grasses to grow back;
* The board will encourage the City Council in a letter to continue pursuing a park at Core Area Pond; and
* The board will look into enforcement of its rules by the Davis Police Department.
Dolcini said there also was talk during Wednesday's meeting of banning dogs completely, but the idea lacked support.
An idea discussed at the council meeting, but not pursued, included a back entrance to the dogs' area and a fence between it and the burial section.
Until June 1, the back portion of the cemetery is available to dogs, as it has been through a lease for a year and an informal arrangement for at least 20 years.
The council's and board's votes came amid complaints about dogs wandering in the burial area (an off-limits section), barking, bothering mourners, even urinating on a grave.
It seems the park area has become a regional draw and is featured on Web sites. City officials and community members have said dog owners sometimes park cars on the grass and disobey the rule that dogs must be on leashes until they are in the designated area.
For years, the city has searched for an appropriate site for a park where dogs could be let off their leashes, but has struggled with neighbors' concerns, environmental issues and other obstacles that have eliminated options.
City Councilman Stephen Souza, a former member of the Recreation and Park Commission, raised the issue Tuesday, urging his colleagues to improve the situation at the cemetery and reopen an analysis of Core Area Pond.
An environmental analysis of the site - a sunken grassy area on Second Street said to be about 2 acres that is available for soccer, although there is debate over whether it is used - will look into any impacts of the dog park on drainage pond water quality and on toads and other biological resources, according to the city.
Community members who have spoken against a dog park at Core Area Pond have cited environmental concerns.
Souza, who has more than 25 years of experience in professional pool and landscaping work, said the site could be sloped to avoid drainage of animal waste into the wetlands area and a fence could be installed in a day or two.
The city and Yolo County also have begun developing a large dog park at Grasslands Park south of Davis.
"I think we gave it our best shot. I think it failed," Councilman Ted Puntillo said of the cemetery park Tuesday.
Mayor Ruth Asmundson said she spent 30 minutes at the cemetery one day and witnessed people parking on the grass and a woman allowing her dog to bother a person praying. One of her concerns was that it has become a regional attraction.
"They come and use it, but they don't really try to (protect) it as their own," she said of out-of-town visitors.
Cemetery Board member John Reuter, who voted against disallowing dogs off leash anywhere in the cemetery, said today he saw the issue as having two sides and believes it is unfair that the council voted to discontinue the cemetery arrangement without a replacement park ready to go.
Some speakers Wednesday said they appreciate the mix of uses in the cemetery, as did their loved ones who now are buried there, he said. Relatives have specifically requested being buried there because of the environment created by the mix of uses, he said.
"They view it as not a sad place, but that life goes on, and that they can be in a place for eternity where people are having enjoyment," Reuter said.
That argument carried equal weight in his mind "to someone who didn't want that to happen," he said. "So, I felt that it wasn't that clear-cut of a case, and really to be honest, it was a symbolic vote," since the council already had decided not to renew the lease.
- Reach Beth Curda at bcurda@davisenterprise.net
Cadavers for fertilize. (:=)
Actually doesn't the state have to give approval for cemetery first ? (state of Michigan's Department of Commerce's cemetery and funeral bureau)
No burial for me please, viking funeral instead.
Blaze of glory instead of worm fodder.
Cheap wood or heavy carboard? A Honda motorcycle crate would work.
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