4:30 p.m. we'll call the meeting to order first item on the agenda is the review andove the agenda uh approve the agenda make a motion make a motion to approve the agenda all favor say I hi agenda is approved sorry all right where the hell did you get that your B you want one try s uh second I'm on the agenda review and approve the meeting minutes from January 29th I thought we just do no the agenda oh the [Music] agenda yeah see any issu this no just I just had a question on what the cost being it says not less expensive I thought it would have been it's not you're looking at the minutes of the the minutes yeah it's under cost when I download are not less expensive than custom there I'm thinking well you're not paying for a casket you're not paying for the for the for the cement thing did she say that she must have somebody grov I mean I could look up the rules for the Westford green barrial because they have them online and double check that well that's not the point really well we're g to discuss it today the point is is it's in the minutes of the meeting someone said that green burials are generally not less expensive for the cemetery owner it didn't come from us so had to come yeah it could be I I wrote the minutes it could have some issues with my notes there might be a confusion here because the cemetery owner being the town well no unless they were meaning unless they were meaning license own right thinking that under the new Mass General law is what they do you wanna do you want to wait on the minutes and I can clarify that or whatever the commission wants to do he said it is more I mean that is true I think for it's part of her presentation I think I think leave it's fine sign it oh Dan Dan yeah okay so I took notes that day yeah I took a lot of notes they look good I it's good all right I'm well I you this the stuff we talked about you put in the next meeting was scheduled for Monday January 22nd that's happening before the minute it's the next to the last line paragraphing the first page oh yeah I don't know why that that's wrong oh so that should be deleted yeah that the whole thing other than that I think it looks good I actually drove through or bited through their GRE baral sections just was grass somebody had a bench I actually knew it was my son's kindergarten teacher in W so it was back section of the cemetery near the D near where the bird sanctuary is you know one second say I accepted okay January 29th with the one with the one correction yeah all right Tom de massachusett Cemetery Association and Cemetery helpful Solutions you're up Sir yeah yeah Mr chair through you yes sir go ahead I let you do the little intro tell them what happened from the last time we got together yeah so um no thanks I just wanted I know we were looking at getting other perspectives about cemeteries and you know specifically greenberries but Tom he has over 20 years experience um just managing just one Cemetery right 57 years total um so he now his company does Consulting for cemeteries and um and so he actually came in and looked at ours and some of our documents and helped me work through them from an operational standpoint so he has a lot of uh you know knowledge expertise in in in cemeteries so um you know I know we specifically have on here to talk about green burials but I'm sure there's anything talk you want to help us with operation wise too it be great so which cemetery are you associated with well what happened I from many years since 1967 I was part of uh one in Boston uh without getting his names but uh one of the larger ones in the in the city uh was there had through up until about the late 80s uh when I founded Cemetery Heth for Solutions uh since then the Attorney General brought me in and I took over a cemetery in uh Taunton uh for the purpose of Rec correcting it because some funds were kind of directed some families were getting a little concerned they went to the attorney general office so I took over and put a whole new board together and did that we have a large uh green burial section that got develop there uh natural burials really but was dealing with uh a faith-based situation what year was that that they started the green burials well it's natural it's the way it got set up and procedures we'll get into that a little more but uh that was done now a little over six years ago why do you differentiate uh because there's a great difference between green burial and natural burial okay um depending on if you're going to uh look at it as a hybrid or if you're looking at it uh with conservation uh which some groups have been doing and or under a conventional procedure which is no equipment uh hand digging um all of those types of things I'm not sure your previous folks that came and spoke to you as to I you know how those other cemeteries are doing it pretty much green well green to the point that you're thinking of it from the dollar side yes well green to the point of of uh be it claw shroud okay shallow shallow graay shallow shallow depth three feet I think it was well that's looking at Vermont what they went through some of them some concerns basket weed wicker basket no concrete no concrete and and that becomes and those are the things that we I want to discuss with you and throw on the wall different ideas I mean where it's working some of the folks are definitely promoting that form of burial the other part of it is as a municipal you've now taken over a cemetery from someone else um and burial rights are in perpetuity it becomes a question then as to what may happen how families perceive a natural green burial and will they get to reuse that burial space again these are things you've got to think about or now in the case of Dan's position in managing the cemeteries uh I don't know I mean I'd love to look at maybe the regulations and procedures but one of the other cemeteries that is a client of mine is great barington who does have the right of allowing families to choose uh a natural burial or green burial uh however there's addition additional fees and procedures relating to that so those all come into play also the more responsibility in operations putting aside the idea of oh it's great for the family because that's what they want and in most cases it is an environmental reason that they want to do it they want to uh base basically uh look at the carbon footprint and and how that could be saved because the outof burial container is not being used but then again in the United States and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts we are in perpetuity so a lot of those natural burial Graves outside of um mass or any of our United States is reusing some of that space because they're trying to save land and making multiple use that's not the case for you folks in air because you have to sell your burial rights in a perpetuity way and those were questions we got into before with Dan was how many burial rights how many human burials do you allow in a single grave and you know are you looking at also or as the commissioner's looking at a green burial section completely away from the other Graves knowing what I've seen at woodlon uh I see a newer section or a section undeveloped but I don't know if there's other land out there that you are thinking of developing for this purpose uh so the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and this might have came up either through your attorney or in the meeting with the folks that did do this in uh in restwood uh I don't know if they even met with or looked at the state because the D does have a model guideline that says we don't want to see if you're going with green burial we're suggesting you shouldn't have any more than 50 graves in an acre of land well that becomes a difficult really yeah got the notes I'm sure that they went through the thing no no no I I'm not saying they had what I'm saying is these are things that would be looked at that I looked at yeah but that's for traditional with the Vault and everything no no no green I'm talking green now because of that now in another Cemetery I had in Holio they wanted to open up a section and of course when we got into the aquifers and a few other issues they made a stipulation when the cemetery was open the land was designated for Cemetery use they required uh that it would be a out of burial container and they required it to be a vault which is a sealed out of burial container yeah that one of hoio right down on the hill it runs right to the river right and the one but this is dealing with the one that starts going up towards Northampton yeah there other one okay so uh when we did that that's different but the question that I'll try to answer is are we design in a newer area all together and then put together the regulations for it as you were saying it would be I think in the minutes it'd be less expensive well it could be less expensive for the license holder who wants to use your grounds to bury because they might not be using that casket uh but they still need the Shroud or you may wish to require still a form of durable container I have leared that you don't have your own staff that opens the grave and so forth it is by a contractor um but in many of the other cemeteries even Mount Auburn when Candice was there and uh we were doing a lot of the things for Mount Auburn at the time the bigger concern with the first shroud that came in even though they had some with Muslim burial family you know was for the staff handling that because they couldn't right handle it as well that comes into play as to if you allow it or set up policies and procedures for it then how does operations handle it okay and also there is definitely no documents here that would protect you the town for uh retrievability or anything else that some families do think that they can do even with that they're not educated to the point say I want green burial or I want a natural burial because I don't want to deal with the professional funeral draw or I don't like the cost you know those things kind of come up once in a while which is sometimes the reason for it um not that now but there are families that want it I understand that I I'm the legislative chairman and handle all the legislation that's going on in the Commonwealth now and we've just finished the envir environmental friendly uh new dispositions looking at composting uh no natural organic reduction I call it composting and or alkaline hydrolysis which is the use of other chemicals so that you're not using a Crematory for heat so you know those things all come into play fortunately the legislators have tabled it all um due to some issues with the medical examiner office and others but that's not for today's discussion but it is part of the total picture that we're working on for environmental friendly ways to help families if they're choosing to do that uh and all fness we do not have a lot of folks pounding down the doors to do it that way some of them do want to do it to avoid the professionals they they don't want to use the licens funeral director if they don't have to and I've got many cemeteries that have had burials brought to their Cemetary by families not by the funeral it's interesting West requires that there's a funeral yeah there is a couple now that are taking that on and I think that is tremendous I I mean they're they're working it but I mean what Dan and I got into the discussion with is more on the operation L what will how you can do it then how is it going to work how is it U now in the case very truthfully with the religious of the Muslim families that do burial with the Shroud thought Jewish too many depends on Orthodox yeah it's true um however what they're all doing now due to the responsibility of the cemetery for uh ground protection so that nothing caves in and you have a liability to somebody falling that's visiting a different grave and or uh or retriev not retrievability but the ability to shore up your grave two of The Vault companies have the Orthodox uh boxes liners that have a bottom piece completely missing from it and truthfully at the cemeter I had in taunt with the matter of fact the the Muslim families have t I've given that that's been taken over by them now they are requiring um the Orthodox type box rather than no outside cement at all and it's still with the shrouded body and so forth uh I worked with the Board of Health who had a brand new Cemetery in peid and they originally went with a vault only due to the water table uh and it was accepted so the Shroud still went into the in but it was still not that natural 100% green burial that maybe you're considering or or want to go uh and that's fine I mean I as I said to Dan whatever the direction is it's changing your new rules and Rags which has things we talked about anyways but also making sure you're protected within your procedures your interment authorization form and all the other things to make it work for you and make it work right well one of the things that just just stuck in my head this 50 barrial per acre that's wow that's 870 square feet per barrial correct that's a lot that's too much we sell our lots of three AR they this is under this is under Mass d uh that has this set up it's one of the things I found when I was working with another Cemetery um and I said okay looking at it as an entire section out in the field or whatever with no monuments and so forth is one thing in our planning or if it's giving the rights to the people who already have burial rights in the cemetery to do that form of barrial is there some sort of mandate that Pro prohibits mixing and matching so other than we we discussed early on about a separate section um but looking at what's out there now is that an acre of cleared land is that a whole that section five yeah I don't think it is I don't know it who says that who who made up close is it no I could look it up are we beholding to that yeah that's recommendation that there I don't know the five so that's been it was laid out by the previous company and it's mostly available they sold five watts in it so I think we have to we would have to address those some I don't know legally what what happened but who did the previous company sold five of the lots and that my suggestion s of green fls my suggestion or recommendation would be is to allow if you did it would be allowing it within Graves not possibly opening up a separate section due to some of the [Music] M you operational requirements sometimes of Shoring the grave really the out of burial container is really Shoring the grave right yeah the other issue and I've worked with green barel I've worked with Jeff I've worked with all of the folks one of the bigger issues that they have been doing lately and we've had some discussions about this is a lot of times they're putting Phil next to the Grave allowing the family to be part of that burial no different than a Jewish faith putting the soil back in and filling the grave the problem is oer requires that soil to be 2 and 1/2 ft back in many cases it doesn't this is this is the part that I'm getting at to protect the town now if it came up that you're doing it all of a sudden you're putting soil for someone to put back in a go a bit of C why did we have the trench bill that came about that a six foot marker though I mean we're not we're talking about 3 ft now you got to be careful of depth right I would think you know three feet that's that's what I had that's what West does that's what the information is that what West is doing three and a half or three remember the presentation it was three feet so that they can climb in and pass the body down don't know the reasoning behind it but I remember the depth because it surprised me that we only went down 3T for a natural or green barrial I think four feet at least no that's what it said I know but I think we were doing for the section we opened up and did for the faith based we were still at 4 feet four half we're a little over four and a half but you said but we also used we also used the Orthodox liner yeah right which is like not it's a normal box yeah with no bottom it's not doing a teacup a lot of the cemetery they're taking an actual liner and that's the other thing of looking at definitions a a you have an outer burial container that should be in your requirements for burials as a we talk about what's an outer barrial an outer barrial container per no an outer barrial container is the outer burial requirement that is holding the casket uh from Earth load and protecting it so a liner would be could be a three-piece uh cement unit with two cover tops or it could be a one piece but it's unsealed a vault is a two-piece sealed well all right I mean I well your Funeral Directors would like to hear for merchandising purposes they do like to hear the word Vault because it's a higher end product well that's an out that's def in fully encased a liner is fully encased also it's just not sealed is it okay I they put a cap on so it do so it's still doing the Earth load it's still protecting the ocean requirements it's still is it like this with no and this is the ground or this is the ground and it's like that and the body's here the body's there which way is when a grave is prepared and dug it's dug down at the 4 4 and 1/2 ft for single depth burial now again depending on the cemetery yeah and what they require for the number of human burials that are allowed when I purchase my burial right in your Cemetery am I getting a right of single depth burial or am I getting the right of two human burials you're placing another human burial on top but it's cremated remains it's still a human barrial well in that respect we had we had one full-sized human and we allowed cremation second one with ear or one plot with three ears yeah so and the what I've been promoting and good B indiff I've always had a structure of allowing each single grave the right of two human burials so when a family purchases the right you know what your responsibility is for to the license holder and the two burials could be then you identify it as one cascet burial and one cremated remains still in two human burials because you the memorialization becomes another big issue yes or two cremated remains in our case we l three okay I mean a sun that goes the other room what I've done is I also have heard from many Commissioners and other select board members we have no funds we're we're kind of doing our thing and we're moving along well it's an old joke I use but when you purchase the brand new car once upon a time they give you a lot of extras that you pay for in a grave business-wise by keeping it at two burial rights it's not to say that third one or the fourth one could go in the grave but you do it as an overcapacity additional burial rate and the family pays for that additional burial rate that's a that becomes a business situation good bad or indifferent but it it looks at the budget if you're finan or if you're looking at the dollars that are invested within your Cemetery those are they're still paying for each burial they're just paying the size a lot right but when you purchase a vehicle yeah you can purchase a chevry or you can purchase the Mercedes or you can purchase you know what I'm saying you you have different levels if you cemeteries today that I'm dealing with New Jersey a lot of my ones they're doing triple dep burials of course they're charging 18,000 to 24,000 for a single grade um so so we were just charging a lot which is 3T by 9 ft corre for xll and then going with whatever burial if they want to but it's not there do two caskets but we could do a casket and right thing so the families need to understand that's not their land space they're getting which you yeah turn yeah and this would be the same for green or natural burial I mean you have to be definitely rewriting in here how you receiving that uh and again uh your attorney uh your Town Council did bring up the things of talking a would to help if the cemetery is so design and this was a question Dan and I got into because I know you acquired woodon Cemetery right and it was the way it is right now I said did the previous Board of Trustees that now have assigned it to the town of air did all of that land get designated as Cemetery use by your Board of Health I know and I found out in many communities as they purchased additional land everyone knew it as Xyz Cemetery but they never got the land under uh the section laws that require the Board of Health to approve it as SE we to do that I haven't looked into it but that we got into just for the transfer I having yeah yeah we just ass yeah every I mean it's nice that you were quieted true and so we were going to have follow the model of West they had their regulations and then they had an addendum of varial regulations so I don't know what else you went through that's in those regulations that you might recommend to change but well a lot of it even into the Priceless we have many uh great barington we're talking right now with a Priceless that I'm redoing with them is we're looking at if they're using an outside contractor that they have a contract price to open the grave he was getting the contractor was getting an additional fee for the green burial or not having an outer burial container being placed in the grave to accept the body in Shroud or gasket so you have two I used to work be in charge of St Mary they had one person one company would dig the grave yeah another Vault Vault Company would come in based on the funeral director selling a product to the family right and then but and that would come in and they would put that in then you'd have the funeral and put the Vault cover on and then they your own staff would come back the contract came so you yeah I mean but the produci responsibility is still to St Mary's and they just had those people doing it that's what do that's what Dan and I were talking about is how are your procedures and steps I didn't know until I first came and did what we did with the documents and stuff to know that because I'm always if hired a lot of times I'm here to protect the liability of the town that's number one yeah some of it you might not like but it's it's what the goal is yeah U that I know I've worked with your town counsil a lot in many communities but anyways let's try to get to so if we're looking at a liner a liner has in most cases it's one piece bottom and sides so it goes like this it goes into the grve yeah the Orthodox one is missing some of the bottom but it has a lot of it so but when you set it down in the ground the ground is y the ground is touching okay so it still has structure that could be an option for your protection for the town so giving someone the green barrial or shroud if they wanted to go that rout so they still have Earth to Earth yeah in the case of uh what I know the Muslim faith does they add extra dirt inside of that out of burial container so more Earth is to that but then they place a cover over it to protect them and it also protects the town so for Less settling so now I also have some cemeteries that in their prices have an additional fee for having a natural burial green burial and which also includes settling because there'll be a lot of settling if they don't have the box what what are you call in the Box well it's an outer bom container outer OBC OBC you'll see that in section one of chapter 114 and these are things I write when I revise rules and rs and make sure all those definitions are there to protect the community that's doing when you start talking about liner and AOL this does not sound like a greenberry it's not well again it becomes what your Board of Health requires if you're doing my that is why I'm leaning you towards if you've already got a developed cemetery and if you want to allow a natural burial you would do it within certain Grays rather than opening up a whole new section someplace because you'd have to have that why well part of it is the Comm D talking about the 50 burials in an acre I don't know what the water table is there I don't know probably around 10 12 ft pretty deep gas station right next to it yeah I know that we did test Wells over there before they put sunk the tanks okay to make sure they wouldn't float yeah and they they don't even have a raised septic or anything it's I mean Prett good over there yeah that's tremendous yeah um well I guess I I also have the question why is form alide considered better than human remains to go into the water table I mean that's a whole another question well and I've we've had that study and it's available to anyone that wants to see it there is no issue with the felhide due to the fact there's not enough of it in one body you start doing natural on that same basis real close to each other now you are putting a lot more material closer rather than being protected by the outer and how what's wrong with the human material what's poisonous about that or can contaminate there is just no I have no problem with it I'm just saying these are things that jump to that idea another question I had is okay we have a lot of historic cemeteries in this state they didn't put the vaults in they just buried them and yeah but they didn't they didn't inom them either right and in a natural burial you not inomed correct so they just put you in I guess shroud a basket not mandatory so no it's mandatory more so by the Home funeral home and to allow the body to be brought in supposedly their health reasons for the body inside truthfully cemeteries were be very proud and also got to thank you folks for at least looking at these ideas but cemeteries are all open through the pandemic where your funeral homes were you know and we got the you know we handled a lot of families um so it's it's a position from working it depends if it's one grave if you're going to open up a section I mean and I think they answer your question was say Susan Okay that D was a they're saying they'd like to see it as requirement but it is kind of a formula that they would like to see used who they who that's DP of the state the state they would like to but it's not been legisl so it's a guide like a guideline basically it's it's the 800 and some OD square feet is primarily because of leeching capabilities is that what I'm under yes I look at when we do cemeteries and I have an acre of land in a cemetery I'm looking at probably anywhere from 750 to 1100 Graves with a vault lined up be it even like what you got here I'm saying being designed to be a grave be it uh 3x9 3x10 because you got a put for a monument you have a walk path however you design it if you have tons of acreage or availability to you opening up a green burial section that has a much more open flavor that's great it's a good opportunity it's just depending on your needs now section 10 when you get into up and until when you go Woodline you didn't have a cemetery in your town right so you weren't meeting the state required to the town has one but you're using Woodline probably I think but we were yeah I think we were yeah I mean if you had a oh if oh yeah there was if you had you would have probably done it the town would have probably done it in that private Cemetery now it's your Cemetary yeah so you're meeting your requirement of burial of your dead course that's a term definition that we discussed a little bit as to some communities are not selling the graves to their residents they're only using them for the needs of certain burials uh for Indigent and so forth um due to the fact they don't have a lot of extra land and they you know or there it's only four residents and they have a real strict code as to who that Resident is that's purchasing do we have lot of indigent being buried in air by you're looking across the board I expect there probably a substantial amount in other towns but we're just caring about air right now he's given us pretty broad bre I'm really that's what I'm trying to do um I don't know um Our Town Council mentioned uh dph Department of Public Health and D were looking at further furthering guidance for green barriers you have any I'm working Insight on that working with them there's a lot of things going on right now yeah um and a lot of it goes back even in the 80s when I was working with vital records and we were doing a lot of that they really want to look at this more because it is a request people are asking the bigger question of what's been happening is what is the definition of a cemetery because there is more and more forests or outside groups that are trying to possibly develop their own memorialization and generate and do they have to follow under the cemetery rules uh and be a not for profit they're trying to get into the other of the world if I remember right cemetery is attached to a church graveyard is not is that the way it worked I got it backwards backwards backwards right but in chapter 114 when we've now Rewritten yeah any Cemetery in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is now following the law regard there's no caller per se to the religion um it's under their it's under their governing Authority okay your governing Authority is your select Bo they've appointed the three of you as Commissioners to do their wishes um per se I I You're Not Elected right we got into that uh elected has a little different under chapter 114 an elected Cemetery Commissioners do have a little different control within their cemeteries than the appointed and then there is some that have no Cemetery Commissioners in the select board with their DPW director or their Parks director whoever theyve given that right to handles the cemetery what this is strictly a a an opinion what is the probability of a D um getting legislation on this 50 bodies per acre room that troubles me yes I agree unless you're running out of real estate that's the big thing and and I hear it's either real estate they're running out of or no funds and all fness these are the two big things I get with well municipal government it's like some churches that don't want to have a school pastors there are a lot of municipals that wish they weren't in this you know having cemeteries or having a section what it is what is this chapter 114 chapter state regulations this all cemeteries in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts follow chapter 114 that is our governing law now the major part of this which is what your Town Council spoke about is if you had a raw piece of land that you wanted to designate a new Cemetery we have to go through the Board of Health get it done and the town and and again uh that becomes that fine line that's why I was trying to understand when I worked with Dan here too I got it that's it yeah this is this here all got written here I did that that was all approved by uh working matter of fact acting Governor soluchi did that's who signed all the new terms so if you look at these if I want the definitions okay so if you go okay flag get grain liner is an unsealed outer the outer container okay two so I'm trying to if it's unsealed so there's no bottom it's unsealed on the top because well how do I there are some funeral there are some funeral homes and that purchase from The Vault Company a two-piece unit the whole bottom and your sides which is that piece and they have a top that goes over it that sits on a little Edge that completely now if there's a ceiling device to that then it's sealed and it would become a vault it's still an out of barrial container which you don't want to see for a natural bar I fully understand it a green bar but you can put more in the L if you do that well you have other requirements of Osha you have other responsibilities to the town and protecting your grounds okay as to settling and so forth they come into play uh there is the trench law that when you're digging uh I ended up getting cemeteries exempt from the trench law when the Commonwealth was passing it the reason why their definition of a trench became what a grave would be 3 by9 3 by8 you know that was the start of it so many Cemetery I was getting correct and I was getting calls from DPW saying we're not going to go for a a permit we're not going to put steel uh pad on the top of it you know we're using PL you know what I'm saying a lot of different things came part yeah so we got ourselves exempt from that using the argument the outer burial container that goes into the grave is your sharing device I mean I don't I don't want to be splitting hairs over the D you know it's almost like it's not it's not a complying space no one's going to be in there corre however my Faith families uh on the Muslim side they want to we're at 4 and a half feet they're going inside and holding the body and lowering it they aren't using uh straps okay um and that comes they do that yes so the pole has to be big enough or no it isn't they stand inside the outer Barrel container that happens to have no bottom to it it it's not 100% it still has an edge for support of the structure so it's a rectangle box like this this is looking down and they have a unsealed top that goes on top that helps the Earth load and other equipment of course they don't like anybody else driving over it yeah yeah what about mowing well again if you're doing a whole SE section out someplace and have a nice field with wild flowers and all of that and you have no monuments and everything else you don't maintain it at all you leave it alone however there is another little part of the law that comes into play that when you design a when a cemetery designs a section and starts selling those burial rids we have to have a map we have to have a Graves marked you have to have them numbered out there y yeah I know a lot of my communities I deal with do not do that I hate to say it they not do they they are not mocking every grave as they should they might have Corner markers and so what yeah that's what we ours in section four has that's what that's what the previous company did there's the 10 plot Braves they sold they made a 10 plot then they sold five companion Graves or whatever they deal with that runs into your problems as I've seen when we were there with your monumentation your memorialization with your distance and why you might have to move a monument to dig a grave and so forth which is why many cemeteries are changing even that part of it because the cost of doing that but let's say with the green baral to help you with that okay just throw things on the wall you could do it you should check with your you know you're able to check with your water and everything else but one of the other areas I think that needs to be checked is did the previous governing authority of the cemeteries gather all that land and was it just approved or did it go through D I mean excuse me your local Board of Health and approval within the town so you want both DN the comes into play if there is any water table issue right I don't could get that answer from the board of they may not have it they might not even have it all F I can look into that I I imagine Council might have looked at that when they'd got the transfer they should have but maybe not you told me we had the open section and then there's wooded behind there that is available to expand further that's the question I asked Dan are we stopping at the tree line or part of the cemetery yeah how far the property line do property line goes way back okay so you could be putting in other roadways and clearing you could which would allow you to do what you wish to maybe be doing in a different section well that's that's an interesting point because some of the some of the natural burial I read is undisturbed Woodlands so your friendly Forest groups that are trying to play Under the drip lines of their trees and so forth um they're also getting five 10 $15,000 for that opportunity to place your fortunately cremated remains only because they're not designated as Cemetery okay now we as a cemetery this is an argument I've had with with Vital Records in the Commonwealth we as a cemetery must have a burial from it to open the ground that's part of what that burial permit does it gives that permission for us for health reasons as a designated Cemetery to open the grounds for that grave now back in the 80s we dealt with the very same thing and we're dealing with a little bit with the new Maverick system the new portal that is now being developed by the Commonwealth and trying to get more records um and we also have our veterans groups who want to know where all their veterans are buried they're not at a Crematory they're at a cemetery hopefully someplace that we Cemetery are required to have a burial permit for the burial of all in our Cemetery that includes cremated remains so we said which should be that's what I used to do at St Mary i' get i' get the but you get the certificate see a lot of my CER would get the certificate of cremation from the Crematory not a copy of the burial permit no I had to because I had to send the burial permit to the town hall correct correct that I signed that I would sign that it was buried or this or that and to the town so that's Town Clark has it and that becomes another part of your families who want to be environmentally or want to do a green burial does Westwood you said is requiring Cay funeral director to bring the deceased to the Grave well I don't know if they're requiring they just said uh I can confirm all this they just s need to find out if the land has been designated for just Cemetery the board of H that's a whole different issue and this I know this there's a simple way to do that okay okay and that's basically having your full plot plan and just getting it reconfirmed if the Board of Health does not find the paperwork I've done this I did this with six different communities I've done it with the Board of Health couldn't find any records we went back in with the entire plot plan of what was truly Cemetery Land and got a re blessing for say uh from the Board of Health that we could use all this as land it's designated as Cemetery Land it seems to me we're kicking a be n to open this whole question up I I did the only reason it came up is because all land has been approved legally by we have it's probably been done because in in the not too distant future we will run out of real real estate as well and we're going to be faced with the same thing is that land been designated the cemetery Town's doing blessing now okay so how many acres is the whole Cemetery five I think in total the whole thing if you include all of it and how the road right how much we use now how much we build saying we're going to run out of space if you look at it on the gas station side of the road you're filling up the develop section already you're going to go back into the next section that's where we're going next five and then there's more land behind there 10 and 15 that's how manys we're doing blever whatever you want to use don't know yes there is so each side is five acres so this side's five this side's five and look at that that to me is a lot of over we' well the question question the question becomes how many burials you in a single grade that's why cemeteries have gone up you know either with buildings or C of area they've done other things to handle that your populace based on your populace in your community the national average is about 1% is your death rate uh per year now based on the marketing of that I'm going to use the word marketing business-wise is if there were other cemeteries in the area you know let's figure out of that 1% there a portion that may go someplace else to be buried uh thus that changes the numbers that you would be getting in your your populous what's your total 8,000 okay so that's only eight and nine and there's how many burials a year they've been doing about 11 10 to 15 so you're just above it and again you're you're World War II veterans in now now kind of come off and you know we're all on that other end burials when we think of it for the future we're good for at least 25 more years right so that comes into play those are the those are the studies that I do for some communities that are looking at all that type of stuff but um the only reason it came up is when we were standing out there and I found out you've acquired this Cemetery um and there were a lot of questions you were asking Dan and all fished when I was trying to get an answer to help you folks uh other than just green burial you know I was trying to look at it in a much uh larger picture um but green burial as it is is more designed you know it's that environmental it's the carbon footprint um some people want to do it because they think it is less expensive they think that uh like you're in your minutes is not it can be much more expensive truthfully the folks that have sections that are running their cemeteries as a natural or green burial Cemetery completely their Brave prices their opening fees everything else would exceed many Municipal cemeteries of what you charge today um so it works that way the other thing is you'd have to have certain paperwork because now the the body is definitely not retrievable and you need to cover yourself by having paperwork signed not just an determin authorization form but other forms signed that certain things can't be done so you have S lot um you want to help protect town from legal attacks people love to suit towns and towns get hit with a ad and they spend a lot of money on okay when has the cemetery ever been involved in some legal dispute tree going on right now and they one just briefly like uh one was the lowering device failed lowering device for the casket yep okay uh and two others were uh they did not do their mapping correctly and they resold Graves and they didn't have a clause that allowed them to correct their issue isues and that caused that a family to sue fortunately as a minicipal you have a maximum of what you could be sued for right I mean yeah I mean think was we had one I know I worked for the dasis of mulle I me in Springfield I was in yeah field and Boston I definitely was yeah yeah um but that's beside green burial is a way to the Future as to how you want to look at that I mean it's even concerns I have with some of my uh Catholic cemeteries today that are truly looking at how they accept the cremated remains is it 100% of the cremated remains has the family red divided it in multiple situations the church has its feelings of the new dispositions they might like alkaline but they don't care for no okay natural or green has its terms green burial is more the hybrid when I was saying that that is grave being opened by Manpower uh soil being placed the side no equipment the body probably has not been treated in any ways that's up to the funeral director and what the family does if the family is doing a home wake they have the right to do that I have cemeteries that have had the families bring their deceased to the Grave M there's a lot of cemetery management that just couldn't handle that they didn't know what was happening it all the you know those are the things that that seems more like a natural rather than a a hybrid green I mean did by hand is is more of a natural base than trick so that you does anyone ever dug breath I buried a dog and that was horrible it was hard well that's what how how how the question would be as you had folks from Westford or surely here they made a decision how they're doing their graves how they're interpreting it and how they present it that's all using a machine they're using the machine I'm reading the regulations good memory right now i y right now someone could come up to you and say well I don't want it that way I want a true natural burial and that would be that's not acceptable here a no no that no no I mean that's that's what we have this is why okay we haven't come to that point Dan and I were just talking about yeah where do you want to go right it's like throwing everything on the wall which you're listening and I commend you for gathering this information I don't know what they chose to do I know I talk to many cities and towns that are even looking at pet cemeteries within their cemeteries and doing all these things because that somebody's requesting it within their Town yeah uh that's why we have legislation right now dealing with those issues um so the thing is is I guess the question I would have is when you look at green burial based on what the other towns have done how would you want to offer it to your residents that would become the question and we make sure we no I think the question becomes what are we required to do or what are we required to follow that'll give us the options of what we can offer now if the state says you can't do this you can't do this you can't do this then obviously we can't offer C blanch but if if there's no state requirements then what I'm hearing is we can pretty much offer whatever we choose cemetery is so designated the governing Authority has the right to set policies and procedures and rules and regulations for their Cemetery now you're going to be selling burial rights you're a municipal so you can even have your clause in there as to what a resident is if you so we do we do have that I know I read that I mean however there's some communities because of space there were people that lived there for many many years years have left due to selling then wanted to come back and purchase Graves and at that point they weren't considered residents even you know what I'm saying so those are those little but that's beside the point you have to look at your land what you have and what your number of burials of new Grave sales are um and kind of go from there as for the natural then if you're going to do that then some of your paperwork would have to change the question would be is do you want to for your own protection still re give them the Shroud uh type of burial but you could still require some form of outer burial container it still allows them Earth to Earth that sort of defeats the purpose no I to I agree but can it be but then again somebody now walks over a grave that let go oh yeah which can happen in course any then and someone gets hurt you the town are the responsible party and then you you didn't answer my question about probability of this 800 some odd square foot I I don't I think you have a feeling on it the gut feeling on a natural is I think you're going to see a higher number than what they would thinking what that is I don't know but it will be mandated but the issue is we don't know when that could be mandated yes the bigger issue as I look at is the business of running a cemetery and having the funds available to maintain and care for that Cemetery without taking away from dollars that are for other important parts of a community or even as you know a private Cemetery has to worry about all their costs and when I do a cost of fee many municipals are very surprised at the numbers of what it really costs to operate because if the staff is doing the work fortunately you have an outside contracted so you have a set price but it's still taking your time from here and I don't I didn't see any administration fee to that that dollar is like to the family or funeral director directly to that person if I'm not mistaken right like open or something yeah for your opening so yeah that that ends up going into our the town's general fund yeah go back remember some yeah but the thing is I sit and say okay you got two nice new pieces of equipment that are opening Graves they you know that type cost the 40% uh benefits to the employee uh that some people have to pay for the health insurances and have to look at it it's not Apples to Apples like air municial don't look right use it to right so that would come into play so it's that management of the cemetery that you'd have to at if you're going to open up a brand new section and let's say you go past the forest line and decide that's where you're going to put a natural or green burial area then that would have a little different direction as to how you mark it all out how you sell that burial right I would say that you'd be looking at that as one burial right only okay that one individual not even a cremated remainings on top or or three cremated remains on top none of that it's a single grave for that one burial I would prefer a deeper depth because I've seen the issues in Vermont with their law that kind of said three and a half feet that's did what were the issues animal it just I'd be surprised at that Western say between three and four feet and if we're going to worry about people tripping I mean you can trip over your own shoelaces your bathtub and to have to regulate a whole Cemetery to make sure it's like concrete don't don't come in this is a natural landscape put up a sign warning this is it could be uneven well you fall at your would we still have to mark out the four corners of you mark out each do it through fortunately you've got Electronics today and and your GPS there's things you could be doing to get that I know they do for the regular bar I don't know if they did they charge and they don't know it they some they're charging more for this lot if it's a green burial versus I I have seen in some facilities that they're more than some municipals charg mean to bra weather why why does right now when alkaline hydrolysis came about to save the carbon footprint over crated remains cretive they alkaline we have meaning that was a form of the environmental and is alkaline hydrolysis was a newer form of disposition of the body oh instead of burning it you're just like simmering it in chemical it's chemical you're in a solution so it's alkaline it's alkaline hydrolysis it's being tried to be passed here in the Commonwealth by your environmental gr what happens how long does it take well that was the process I went watched it was about a 15-hour process and what's left well it comes out it comes out very soggy and it then has to go through a drying process before you get it to the pulverizing portion that you would do after cremation the cost of that was approximately uh well almost 15 times the cost of cremation but it's environmentally carbon protected I mean why do I mean even we're looking at the issue of families that are trying to use their own property to do their family burials we we're having a serious concern with that because many of those are coming back as abandoned cemeteries no different than you folks trip over woodlock MH okay that was a private group that and you took it over you mean like a group of 10 like a family from the 1800 well I've got one I'm dealing in Howard right now they want to sell the real estate and they're trying to make a decision how they're going to remove all the family oh y shouldn't have been a lot of the book there in the first place you see a lot of that in New Hampshire too sure yeah so I mean and I'm dealing with churches who have done Memorial Gardens with cremated remains and now all of a sudden they want to en large I have a lawsuit going on right now that the families have said this is our Cemetery you have made a cemetery by designating this Memorial Garden to accept the human created remains to be here in perpetuity okay and what's the legal question on that the church needs to more space for their building so that's they want to move it to another location they didn't plan accordingly or they want to sell the church some I have that issue also busy guy yes um I'm across the you know I do Mexico I do Canada I do all the United States yeah wow um I I I handle I am the chairman of consumer Cy consumer Council surfus Council which handles all of the any complaints the cemetery consumer would have throughout the United States we have a team of people that do that on a volunteer basis that keeps the cemetery out of the funeral World which is what a funeral director has to follow within their pricing structures and so forth when you go to a funeral director you have to request your GPL uh you have to have all the basic prices and so on so I I have an eye on the time yeah no I don't I gave yeah you have some thing but I mean I've seeing families even coming for cremation trying to do it for themselves financially to do that do their own cremation they're no they're trying they're going to a Crematory oh with the deceased oh natural work it's a green burial and natural I'm using both words okay uh it's environmental you footprint about 6% of the fames that are choosing it are doing it because of environmental selecting it that way uh 24% is because their whole family has got that belief environmentally and they all want to be together you know in a natural setting uh religion has its direction your Jewish faith and Muslim faith that we talked about and I think that's about it the the three that the green barrier Council you probably heard was your hybrid conservation and your conventional those are your three forms of how a cemetery could be accepted to be doing green bar that's it the green bar Council was blessing blessing you convention you could do a green burial in a conventional Cemetery that's what you were encouraging that's what us to do because why well you are a traditional Cemetery unless you had another piece of land that you were going to under the cemetery go design it to be a full natural setting with no monuments and no out of Barrow containers and you go do that then you may need to get the new blessing of the Board of Health and the state depending on that piece of land that is why right now you have a cemetery yeah usually have and maybe develop the paperwork to allow someone to be buried under a certain circumstance You may wish to not be real green You may wish to say that we want that out of barrel container we still going to allow a body to be to Earth to the Earth but with the the portion missing there's a lot of cemeteries municipals that have been doing what I'll call the teacup they're placing the Shroud and then putting the top over it not using the rest of the liner yeah to help protect what they have to protect because the liability is to the town way after we're all gone right that's all I I mean leave it at that so let's say there's a row of graves lots that we have sold and I bought the traditional one that is there anything stopping me from being buried without the your rules and regulations right now say it has to be a for concrete well you have you require an out of container not a mean and that becomes the definition of does your funeral homes who are talking to families are they understanding it as a vault which is a higher end product that is sealed or an outer baral container that is just a cement liner that's protecting the Earth load protecting the Earth load and protecting the cast and it still has retrievability at that point well there's a lot of dis interments have lawsuits about that well this question is so who has rights that's why some towns require a court order for a disinterment some have paperwork in a in an application form that approves it if everyone's in agreement then you don't really need to to spend the money of a court to do it you know the it depends on who the license holder is that's the other thing that Dan and I talked about when we're reviewing the rules and Rags is who's getting buried and who's the license holder you know the rights of airs all of those things that you have experienced so the license holder is the person who bought the land they no they purchased the bar rights faal rights yeah it's on the D right okay which is if you opened up a green burial section my suggestion would be you would only be selling single burial rights that's what Wester does I'm going to contact Le the person who got this through Westford toown meeting I mean they' have all kinds of educational events and find out if they they must Market it sounds like they have to mark it yeah I know they do traditional they showed me their markers they the round yeah no they're available I mean there a company right in uh just outside of Taunton um that does The Foundry that makes all your grave numbers yeah um one of the cemeteries I'm dealing with right now we made a decision we're putting them in the uh foundation of the uh where the monument goes they're pre pouring all of that uh so to save time and makes it make loud so there's no tipping of monuments and so forth oh yeah yeah I think that when we get to section five that'll be properly lay that one section four is now but yeah is it I mean you folks I mean at least yeah they're still on the front you work very hard in in putting your regulations together and there's a few things that are very small that I mentioned today just for compliance purposes you may want to look at later so as our next step we got to check with board thank you yeah I think um thank I know we went around circles but I mean I'm only half thanking you you introduced so many new things to think I throw a lot of things on the wall and it gets very difficult and I realize I don't and you I got to commend you I really mean that because at least you're asking rather than maybe just doing it I mean love and knowledge and I appreciate you what was this for that's for later from I got something for you guys okay I get out so you can finish up because it is late if you want to get home for supper yeah and I'm going to hit the road all right thank you well I've given him some suggestions yeah thanks whatever you want to do so anyways thank you very much well for all your help right so these These are something for later yeah under my report all right okay what we got here DPW director okay A little TR um yes so DPW director report so just brief administrative operations update there were two burials since the last meeting we met on January 29th it's been a little while so just only two burials um we've continued with the yes it's called Sims the conversion of all the records to electronic and so we're actually using that which is right here coming up in the next item so we've added a lot of the missing lots that were in the front of section four those got missed when they originally built Sims so now that's there so we're we're getting up to speed there what do you mean they were Miss um when we built the original electronic version of Sims that on the map they missed the front section of section four oh okay so we had the company add that in we get some free time of theirs every year so we use them for that and then Delany our engineer helps build the Sim so it's in good shape okay uh Lot Sale one Lot Sale one so that's for Signature by Mr chair Sam yeah so one lot it was one of the front ones in uh section four um no burial black that's fine one and how many burials did you say since two there two I know we have there's probably two more down the pipeline I don't have any paperwork or anything on those but I'm aware I am aware that those are likely coming what was the other thing you just reported sorry I was trying to find Lot Sale right yeah and then the the electronic software Sims we're just continuing to build that and U we're actually utilizing it now it's pretty nice just internally we don't we didn't make it public facing at all yet is that yeah we we could I mean I would discuss that with you guys before we did but lunenberg has it online and I I I never looked at it so it's like it looks like people trying to find if there's available where the available lots are like instead of having to come to me say hey what lots are available you could look on it and I could show them on do they actually question you about Lot location yeah so when people are buying Lots yeah they want they might want to be in a certain part of the cemetery and so usually David Dean beat them theplan yeah it's like I want to be over here next to so and so a friend of mine it's like I helpful and then it also has information I'll get calls about people who call hey is this person buried in the cemetery there and like someone from 1898 or something you know random California gen yeah like yeah it's kind of you'd be surprised yeah um okay and then the last item I have is who's Bruce Bruce Penny he's the he owns actually if you it's in your little handout I gave yeah you see that Sims print out there so the pennies and Bruce's owner through Hue Penney have confirmed that 10 grave lot so there's been burials you can see in 502f 502g yes they do and so Bruce inquired he so he had um pen penny he has his parents um cremated but he doesn't want to bury them he just wants to place down um a flat marker to memorialize them so I I actually I was you know this isn't in our regulations I was like let me check with the commission because you know it doesn't really speak exactly to that and I think did I include the email from Heather this this one that's so Heather monan this is Westford again they're very helpful so I asked her you know at westf have you had many of these um requests and you know in fact she has and it's called it's actually called a senat c n o t a p so and this happens a lot if it's someone like a missing an action war and you know memorialize them but you don't have their remain so you put a marker yeah so apparently in you know she says they allow two flat markers per grave um but then in their records they they essentially have it in their records that they they note that it's a senate half that there's not actually a burial there well can I when they put the flat marker down does it does it I would think it would said instead of the person's name birth and date you say in memory of and the person's name and date then you know I would think you'd know it was they weren't buried there yeah I mean that would that would help I think but think so well I've seen a lot of headstones and flat markers to say in memory of yeah that's true yeah oh yeah yeah my dad is like that matter of fact I think my uncle's is too I know you mention it yeah thank you VA so I you know I because I was like you know this something that you know commission commiss yeah so he owns them there and what he he's only got one marker on the very left side or right side whatever it is yeah so he right now they have the the you know headstone are any of these are these six occupied oh wait a minute the light blue are are look at this the bigger bigger so there's eight unoccupied single grave lots and then there's two that have ashes in them so he wants to put a flat marker and 402 502 H so it's got four people and two and two lots well I guess my my thought is why not and what are we charging I I think so he already submitted a monument permit application and I think we just go through that process and has to be installed and is it going to be flat yes it just be like your typical flush marker install yeah flat marker it would meet our requirements it's a $100 permit fee so that's it yeah that that covers David inst still the footing David yeah but I still think I I I agree with the the identification of not being bodies in here I mean right so record record keeping wise we have to identify there's no bodies in there in case at some later date somebody El in the family says I want to put a body in there pull that marker out in there so I could um what we typically have is is when you when there is a barrial we have an inter order form I could have them complete one of those but as a record but note on there senap no burial occurred right and Grave actually that would allow the family to go back in a later data if they wanted to use that lot yeah but if they've got a headstone don't they have all the names on the isn't there room on The Headstone to put all the names I don't know right now it looks like you've got two lots but four people are they cremations or one of they are those are cremations based on the shape so there's four yeah four people so do you know if the four is this the I don't know if they're on the back there is this there is that the picture of this yep okay I don't yeah I don't know what the back of the uh headstone looks like [Music] okay so what is he he saying he wants the flush Mark flat marker at the foot of that um Lot H I guess it's the lot right in front of the headstone Yep this would be a question on Jeopardy what's a I know I didn't know that term so heard from other so he this is for his parents yeah and so so they're both on that same they're both going to be listed on that same plat H was the original uh purchaser but I did confirm and there's actually it's in writing that he he passed along the assignment to to Bruce of the oh he's buried over there yeah it is Bruce does have control don't think put request these other people have different names it says Hugh peny and those are the next Mara peny and then it has James farlo and Franklin farlo harlo they might be Rel her Rel to her family yeah I don't know I'd have to look it up but it's yeah it's got to be all these slots why they just use them I don't know they're saving they might have a big family I'm sorry folks I have to get going how much more so I'll so I guess I just need direction or yeah just I don't see why not I think 100 bucks is too little does that really cover everything $100 I don't think it's enough either yes because you got hit G time you've got the concrete you've got the measuring yeah that's what we normally do for a flat marker yeah is that enough with thee but we've Al that's that's a publish rate we gave out yeah it is no that no we did we did check that that covers Dave time and the concrete we've already buried them that's to no yeah there's a separate fee for that yeah that there's a separate fee for that that's loses money I'm just saying yeah I'm not we can go over the race and do another upgrade next year all right so are you going to move that we make a motion somebody well we have to pick another date don't we we got to finish this Mo all right I move that we I allow the pennies to put a senate tap on the lot p p and we charge $100 second all in favor say I okay all right okay so our next meeting like I had a lot [Music] of yeah does anybody have any questions I should ask Lisa I have some but grow woman came to our last yeah well the one of the things I this this box thing he's talking about it says it has to be concrete it can't be wooden because wooden would disintegrate right yes but I'm just wondering why I mean I can understand for mowing it but if it's going to be in an area not going to mow yeah why can't you use wood or he was just yeah it depends yeah you don't M he was trying to produ to recommend the most legally you know the safest thing that could protect that you know legally ambiguous is what he was hitting for okay yeah how soon are we going to meet in two months we taking the summer off already what month may put into July let's go to September August I wouldn't do September I'd back it up I know I know I'll be in Southeast Asia in September oh again oh um I would say the 26th that's the last Monday in August would that work 26 does that work works for me for me yeah in September the 26 and the main thing Dan I would ask you to do is out that legal question from the Board of Health I'll look into that yeah is there anybody alive who would know the answer no yeah hopefully council did the homework there but we'll see when was do we know when the cemetery was founded no I don't know 18 yeah something6 yeah somewhere around there and I don't know how many acres they have but they have 5 4,000 plus how many I don't know total them never I could get it for you though all right where the minutes yeah yeah hold on let me catch up no what well you're in a hurry you got a bicycle a I'll catch you I have to host a zoom meeting yeah I just I've been on them all day almost oh who who um did you get who did the stuff in the beginning I do yeah I have I can send yeah I'll fand Amanda she's are we all good I'm good she's