‘Green’ cemetery proposed near Penobscot River in Orrington

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ORRINGTON – Fourteen pristine acres along the Penobscot River could become perpetually green.

An Auburn-based organization told town planners last week it wants to create a “green” cemetery – possibly the first in New England – off the Mill Creek Road.

The idea is to let the natural landscape remain undisturbed, while providing a sanctuary for the living who come to visit.

The Auburn-based Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine is proposing the project on privately owned land.

“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.

“I said to myself, ‘That’s exactly what we should do with that land,'” she said Tuesday, adding that she wants to preserve the land her family has owned since the 1800s. “It has stayed just about exactly as it was.”

Hills has worked on the endeavor for the last year and a half with Ernest Marriner, secretary of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine, who presented the information to Orrington planners.

Initial plans are to create a nonprofit corporation with a local board of directors, Harriman said. The town did not take any action on the information presented last week, but expects to see a site plan in April or May.

There are no state laws that would prevent the creation of a green cemetery, said Neal, who also is the funeral director for Crosby and Neal Funeral Homes, based in Newport.

“It’s a cemetery issue more than a state or federal issue,” he said.

Some cemeteries require bodies to be placed in cement vaults or have other regulations specific to the location.

State law is vague regarding cemeteries. It requires them to be owned by the community they are in or by a private corporation. The state also requires that a bond or surety be created to protect a town from future maintenance costs, said Clough Toppan, director of the division of environmental health under the state Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates cemeteries.

“It’s very hands-off,” he said.

While there are few state regulations, the town is researching how the property would be maintained after the plots are full if the nonprofit corporation dissolves, Harriman and Town Manager Carl Young said.

“There are legal questions,” Young said Tuesday. “If it goes belly up, will the town have to take over?”

A neighbor for years has mowed the Orrington property, Hills said. At one point she offered to donate the land to the town for a public park, but was turned down. When she offered it to an area nature conservancy, it said it would sell the land, which she didn’t approve.

Steve Burrill, secretary and treasurer of the Maine Cemetery Association and Mount Hope Cemetery, said Hills has been trying for years to create some kind of green cemetery.

“It’s kind of a different concept,” he said. “There is a lot to it.”

The natural-burial movement is still in its infancy in the United States, but has been booming in Great Britain, which has about 200 green cemeteries.

The first U.S. green cemetery opened in South Carolina in 1996. Now there are green cemeteries in California, Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Washington state. The newest one opened on an old farm in Newfield, N.Y., in May 2006.

Three types of people pursue green gravesites, said Mary Woodsen, board president fort Greensprings Natural Cemetery in New York.

“First there is the religious – Christians, Jews and Muslims who want a dust-to-dust approach,” she said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Then you have your folks that just want something simple. They’ve always been careful with their money and don’t spend a lot of money on frills.

“The third group is your baby boomers … the diehard recyclers,” Woodsen said. “They just feel like it makes sense not to put tons of materials in the ground, including concrete, steel and formaldehyde.”

Burial plots at Greensprings cost $500.

In Orrington, spots now available cost $300.

Young said the town also may consider designating a portion of a community-owned cemetery as a green cemetery.

Hills said she and her husband will be buried in a private family burial ground already established and registered with the Penobscot County register of deeds on her land in Orrington, and added she hopes others will join her family.

“We will be there,” she said. “About half of it is field … and the other half is pine woods overlooking the Penobscot.”

Information about green burials in the U.S. is available at the Web site of Forest of Memories at: www.forestofmemories.org and the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Maine site at: www.fcamaine.org.