Residents of far Northern California will soon have a new option for their final resting place: Humboldt County's first green cemetery.
The Planning Commission unanimously approved the project recently.
The nonprofit Sacred Groves will create an approximately 44-acre cemetery about a 30-minute drive from Eureka.
Green burial means interring an unembalmed body in a biodegradable shroud or casket, without a concrete vault or plastic liner, to promote natural decomposition.
Michael Furniss, project applicant and executive director of Sacred Groves, said the soil at the site is perfect.
"Good organic matter, good percolation characteristics and infiltration, good aggregate stability, rich biota and is highly fertile," he said. "It's really an ideal soil, and that really turns me on."
Furniss said currently, green burials can only be arranged at Trinidad Cemetery "by special arrangement," and that cemetery is almost full.
Chair Iver Skavdal called the issue "probably one of the most intriguing topics that I've seen come before the Planning Commission."
According to a staff report, the carbon footprint for a green burial is one-fifteenth that of a traditional burial and one-tenth that of cremation.
The site is owned by the Eric and Mary Almquist Trust and is used for hay production, grazing and forestry, which will continue once the cemetery is established.
Burial options will include forestland, grassland and oak savannah restoration area.
Graves will be dug by hand, and there will be no above-ground markers.
County staff said 18 of the 20 public comments received supported the project.
Resident Jennifer Wheeler is on Sacred Groves' Board of Advisors and spoke in favor of the cemetery.
"I don't want my last contributing act on this earth, if at all possible, to be adding to more human-caused pollution," she said. "No cremation carbon emissions, no forever garbage in or on the ground, no plastic flowers, no polyester flags."
But, planning commissioners had some concerns about animals disturbing graves.
Furniss said he'd discussed conducting tests by burying animals in shallow graves to see what happened, but he thought wildlife disturbing the sites was highly unlikely.
"That does not happen," he said. "There's no evidence whatsoever of that ever happening in the United States."
Commissioners voted that the minimum burial depth must be 18 inches of cover and that Furniss must create a protocol in case of animal disturbance.
The commissioners issued a conditional use permit for the project, and Furniss must finalize a few key details.
Sacred Groves' website said it anticipates the cemetery being open "in just a few months."
