A Bright Idea Arrives in Whatcom

Bob Keller serves on the board of Whatcom Land Trust. The above are his opinions and not necessarily those of Whatcom Land Trust.

How do you want your family and friends to bury you? You don’t. But someday, somewhere you’ll have no voice in the matter. Yet beforehand, you or they will indeed have a choice to make: full body, boxed, scattered, at sea, entombed, crypted? Six feet under? At home? To a medical school? In your garden? Anonymously? Under a huge granite tombstone?

Or how about this: in a quiet, natural setting among trees and trails, with assurance that your death and interment will put no toxic chemicals into the air or ground, and that eventually your body will nourish restoration of once-damaged land?

A year ago my German friend, Ulrich Halfmann, and I wrote in the Watch about “green burial” practices in Europe (“A Bright Idea in the Black Forest” and “From Friedhof to Friedwald,” Whatcom Watch, March 2008). We described how an entire family could be buried around a single large red beech tree amid acres of forest, and at much less expense than conventional German mortuary practices. Eighteen months after this option first became available east of the Rhine near Freiburg, 360 individuals had signed up.

That choice, running strong in northern Europe, has barely arrived in North America. For the best account of green burial’s ecological rationale and the slow but significant progress of such practices in the United States, read Mark Harris’ “Grave Matters,” available at Village Books in Fairhaven.

Fortunately for us, a local funeral home director and cemetery operator, John Moles, has now taken this idea to heart. On Saturday, January 31, Moles hosted a dedication ceremony at the firm’s Greenacres Memorial Park on Northwest Drive, initiating a new burial program in Whatcom County.

Among the speakers was Joe Sehee from New Mexico, founder of the national Green Burial Council, which will certify that the Moles site, called The Meadow, meets strict standards. Under a clear January sky people toured the grounds as a Lummi elder drummed and sang a blessing over the land and those attending.

Moles has cleared 4.5 acres that had contained trash, blackberries and other invasive plants. Trails are planned, as is restoration based on sound ecological principles. Burial here will literally provide a “return to Nature” for those who desire it, or to use rougher language, we will become compost for microbes.

Here I can be buried or scattered below a cedar or silver fir, salal or oregon grape, alder or dogwood. No lawn, no mowing, no tombstones, no concrete liners, no metal coffins, no formaldehyde.

If I do desire a wooden casket, my choice can be a simple one with wood pegs, no metal and no preservatives, made by Lummi Indian craftsmen Doug James, Rod Julius and Charly Moore, or an equally all-natural casket from Smith & Vallee Woodworks in Deming. Whatcom Land Trust has been asked to hold a conservation easement on the site, ensuring its natural status forever.

According to Joe Sehee, The Meadow will be one of the first conventional cemeteries to incorporate green burial practices and indeed will be the first certified green burial site on the West Coast. Traditional methods of interment and scattering will remain in place at Moles, but we now have, as in Germany, an environmentally sound option for those who desire it.

Praise for this innovation goes to John Moles and his family who honor conservation values in deeds as well as words. The Moles’ employee who for eight months tackled all the difficult problems in creating The Meadow is Brian Flowers. Congratulations.

Others who have studied and encouraged this project over the past year are Barbara Brandt, Bernadette Prinster, Connie Clement, Cindy Klein, Peter and Aimee Frazier. Much credit is due these people, to all the staff at Greenacres, and to Whatcom Watch for printing the original story. Because of these efforts, a significant change for the better has arrived in Whatcom County. §