Is a green burial safe for the living? NJ, NY towns in conflict

When considering funeral arrangements, the major choices used to come down to burial or cremation. Now many funeral homes will ask if you prefer to skip embalming, have your body wrapped simply in a shroud, quilt, or blanket and buried in biodegradable casket at a cemetery without a headstone.

Green funerals have risen in popularity in recent years so much so that those wishing for a more sustainable interment in North Jersey have a choice of at least five cemeteries within driving distance that offer natural burials.

But do cemeteries — and in particular ones that offer natural burials — pose a threat to nearby drinking water sources?

That question is being asked by opponents of a new Jewish cemetery on the New York, New Jersey border that may contain as many as 20,000 plots.

Some residents in Rockland County, New York and in nearby Upper Saddle River are fighting against two projects by Orthodox Jews in various stages of development.

One is a large mikveh, or ritual Jewish bath facility, that is still being built in Airmont, New York. The second is the Har Shalom Cemetery, which recently opened on Hillside Avenue also in Airmont and bills itself as one of the largest of its kind.

Among the objections to the cemetery is the argument that it could negatively affect nearby wells that provide drinking water for the area. Upper Saddle River officials recently hired a lawyer to address the water issue for the borough.

They are very similar.

Jewish custom calls for a body to be buried with no embalming chemicals, wrapped in a shroud and placed in a plain wooden coffin with holes in the bottom that allow for faster decomposition.

Like green burials, the goal is for the body to return to the earth as fast as possible.

More recent studies across the globe have concluded that there is a "relatively low impact of cemeteries" on groundwater pollution by bacteria and viruses in moderate climate conditions, according to a 2015 World Health Organization review of research.

A study published in 2022 said that traditional burial leads to heavy metals, bacteria, fungi and viruses that spread along with the soil and underwater. But it also said that green burials are preferable because of the lack of embalming fluids, which eliminates "the presence of any undesired chemicals, that are further leached onto the environment."

There are no known cases of groundwater contamination by a cemetery in New Jersey or any other state, according to a statement released Friday by the New Jersey Cemetery Association.

Supporters of green cemeteries say water pollution is often a specious argument used by those who simply don't want a cemetery built near their homes.

Burial vaults — concrete containers that house a buried casket — are not often required by law but some cemeteries require them not for groundwater concerns but to prevent a grave from sinking as a casket deteriorates. The vault slows decay but it doesn't stop it.

"At some point in time you're going to return to the earth whether it's in a month, a year, 10 years and so on," said Bob Prout, owner of Prout Funeral Home in Verona, which has been offering green funerals for almost two decades.

"Unless you were a pharoh in ancient Egypt, most bodies were buried for centuries without any type of embalming and there was no great contamination of water," Prout said.

Prout said about 10% to 15% of his clients chose a green funeral or natural burial. Almost all are Baby Boomers with an environmental bent, he said.

In recent years, the choices of where you can be buried naturally has increased. Among them: