Maine Green Burial Update

Hi all, here's an update on the Orrington "green cemetery" I've been mentioning. The town meeting has occurred, and it looks like everything is going ahead for later this year. Plots will be priced at $300. Nok-Noi Hauger reports for the Bangor Daily News:

"It’s an environmentally friendly cemetery where everything that goes in [the ground] is biodegradable," said Richard Harriman, Orrington code enforcement officer. "That means [biodegradable] wooden caskets, and if you don’t want a wooden casket, you can go in wrapped in Grandma’s rug or as ashes."

A "green" cemetery requires that bodies not be embalmed or be embalmed with nontoxic fluid, caskets be biodegradable, and graves be marked only by simple, flat native stones, with or without engravings.

Native vegetation also could be used to replace conventional gravestones.

Some green cemeteries have plotted lots and others have randomly placed graves, which would be the case in Orrington.

"Some people prefer a [traditional] burial, and some people prefer a natural burial, and some people prefer a burial at sea," said Peter Neal, spokesman for the Brunswick-based Maine Funeral Directors Association. "This is another option."

As a cemetery, the green space would be protected forever from economic development.

The land in Orrington is owned by retired nurse and schoolteacher Ellen Hills, 86, of Solon. She came up with the idea after reading an AARP article in July 2004.
Read more: [Source]

Green Burial Getting Closer

It's been almost a year since my original post on the potential placement of a "green" burial ground here in Maine. I thought I'd e-mail Ernie Marriner, of the Funeral Consumer Alliance, who was one of the people working on the project, and find out what progress, if any, had been made towards it.

The news is good, and progress is being made, slowly but surely. The current step is working with the Orrington Planning Board to hold a "Pre-Application Conference" for the project at their January 2007 meeting. According to Mr. Marriner, if that goes well, the next step is to submit a formal application for Site Plan Approval in February or March.

Myriad other tasks must also be gotten under way, from completion of soil testing, to surveying, to navigation and execution of a complex pile of legal documents. In closing, Mr. Marriner stated, "An optimistic opening date for the cemetery is July, 2007." Sounds pretty exciting, all 'round. As one of the greenest states around, Maine could sure use a green burial ground for itself.