Cemetery a pioneer in green burial trend

FERN PRAIRIE — One of Clark County's oldest cemeteries is reviving a pioneer-era style of burial, in the hopes of appealing to modern environmental sensibilities.

Near the shadow of a grove of towering oaks, two graves stand out among hundreds of others scattered throughout the bucolic setting north of Camas. Each of those graves is topped by a mound of bare dirt surrounded by a frame of 2-by-6-inch boards.

As the coffins and their contents decompose, the mound will settle.

"As soon as it goes down, I'll smooth it out and plant it just like everything else around here," said William Zalpys, the cemetery district commissioner who introduced the idea and began offering the service earlier this year.

Zalpys, who works as a groundskeeper for Park Hill Cemetery in his day job for the city of Vancouver, said he got the idea when a customer asked about the possibility of a "green" burial at Park Hill. Like other major public and private cemeteries in the area, Park Hill required coffins to be encased within concrete outer liners, to prevent the inevitable collapse.

"That's why cities want to avoid that," Zalpys said.

Zalpys learned there was nothing to prevent the Fern Prairie Cemetery from offering the service.

Others think the small rural cemetery may become a trendsetter, especially in the environmentally conscious Pacific Northwest. The service caters to people who are looking to achieve sustainability even in death, as well as people for whom bare-earth burial serves a religious purpose.

"It really goes back to the original traditions of the funeral industries," said Nick Brown, manager of Brown's Funeral Home in Camas.

Brown said he began looking into green burials about five years ago. The practice had already become popular in England and in Europe, where space limitations long ago pushed cemeteries to consolidate family plots.

Even though it could affect the funeral industry's profitability — linerless burials are less expensive — Brown said he's all for it.

"Dad's always said whether a family has a dollar or a million dollars, it doesn't matter because the emotion is going to be the same," Brown said.

Brown offers biodegradable caskets, acquired through Natural Burial Co. in Portland.

The company makes a variety of biodegradable coffins, including a kayak-shaped "ecopod" featuring mulberry leaves and recycled silk. Company owner Cynthia Beal credited Zalpys for starting what she sees as a necessary transition toward a more sustainable model for cemeteries.

"Any city-owned cemetery in 100 years is going to be full," Beal said.

A green burial is perfectly legal in Washington, said Dennis McPhee, funeral and cemetery program manager for the state Department of Licensing.

"There is no state law of any kind that requires what is known as an outer burial container," McPhee said. "However, most cemeteries do require these outer burial containers."

That's largely because of maintenance issues and visitor safety.

"They want to ensure that there's some protection that graves aren't going to cave in as people are walking over them," McPhee said.

That shouldn't be a problem at Fern Prairie, Zalpys said.

Zalpys envisions setting aside a section of the cemetery for natural burials.

Maintenance should be relatively straightforward.

"Like they say, ashes to ashes," he said.