Where they bury the bodies in Bibb County, Georgia
By Perry B. Goodfriend, Atlanta Public Policy Examiner
The fall decision of the Bibb County (Macon), Georgia commission to strengthen local burial requirements has put a nail in the coffin of a development group’s plans for a “green” cemetery.
The Summerland Group, a real estate investment company, had wanted to put a cemetery in East Macon specifically for “natural” burials, that is, internments without embalming or any other kind of chemical preservation, buried in a biodegradable casket or just a shroud.
The Centre for Natural Burial, which began in the UK in 1993, says of these cemeteries, “These sacred and natural places leave a legacy of care and respect for our planet.”
The County Commission, which had originally voted to approve the new cemetery last April, were forced to take another look at the situation when East Macon activists and others questioned the environmental impact of the planned burial ground.
The changes to the existing cemetery law included a provision to burials exclusively in a “leak-proof casket or vault.” According to the minutes of the commission meeting before the final vote, Summerland CEO Elizabeth Collins argued that such a rule would be in opposition to the Federal Trade Commission, which says “funeral providers are prohibited from claiming that caskets or vaults will keep out water, dirt or other grave site substances.”
“I really don’t know where to go from here,” Collins told media after the vote.
The story received national attention last week when the Wall Street Journal interviewed Elizabeth Collins for a front page story that ran below-the-fold on January 2. According to the WSJ story, the idea behind the cemetery is to provide a place for “pagans, ‘old hippies,’ penny pinchers, environmentalists and Muslims — who traditionally bury the dead without caskets.”
Those who were against the cemetery were concerned about contamination to local wells and the water table.