Green Cemetery Proposal in Lawrence Kansas
City commissioners will consider moving forward with plans to establish a Natural Burial Cemetery area at the northwestern edge of Oak Hill Cemetery. Commissioners will receive information from the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, which wants permission to establish the section and begin selling lots Jan 1. The area would not be mowed. Only native plants, flowers and grasses would be allowed as decorations. No cut, machined or polished markers would be permitted, although “engraved natural, flat rocks, or boulders” would be allowed.
Background
In a memo to commissioners, Ernie Shaw, the city’s interim director of parks and recreation, said that the section would accommodate “green burial,” or natural burial, by ensuring that the site remained “as natural as possible in all respects.” Burial would be in a biodegradable casket or shroud; the process would involve no embalming fluid or concrete vaults. Oak Hill Cemetery could be the first publicly owned place to offer such “green” burials in the United States.
Type your comment here. We are graduates of KU and would like our final resting places to be in Lawrence. Our children would prefer a natural setting in which to visit. Thank you for considering this as a natural burial site.