Southern Maine Veterans’s Cemetery in Springvale will undergo a $2 million expansion on site this coming year, creating additional conventional burial sites and a location for more environmentally friendly options. TAMMY WELLS/Journal Tribune
SPRINGVALE — As the Southern Maine Veterans’ Cemetery expands within its boundaries, the wishes of those seeking a more environmentally friendly final resting place will be able to be met.
As part of the further development of the cemetery property off Stanley Road, space for 234 “green burial” grave sites will be created, said Scott Brown, superintendent of the two veterans’ cemeteries in Augusta, the cemetery in Caribou, and the Springvale veterans’ cemetery.
“It will be the first state or tribal (veterans) cemetery in the nation to have this,” said Brown of the Springvale initiative on Tuesday. He said three national veterans cemeteries, in Colorado, New York and Puerto Rico are preparing for green burials.
The green burial space is part of a larger expansion of the existing property at the veterans’ cemetery, which opened in 2010 on land parcels contributed by Riverside Cemetery and the City of Sanford, and is designed to serve all of southern Maine.
U.S. Senators Susan Collins R-Maine and Angus King, I-Maine, announced a $2 million grant to the cemetery, awarded through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Veterans Cemetery Grants Program to facilitate the expansion.
The project will consist of the develop of about 1.6 acres through the construction of 554 pre-placed crypts, 234 green burial grave sites, landscaping, and supporting infrastructure, the senators said in a joint statement.
As to the ‘green’ option, Brown said he has had multiple inquiries about availability of a more environmentally friendly burial method. He estimated that since word has begun to spread about the new green site at Southern Maine Veterans’ Cemetery in Springvale, seven or eight veterans have changed their burial arrangements to the green alternative.
The green cemetery will be located behind the administration building on the property. Currently a wooded area, it will be planted with natural flora, said Brown. Granite markers will be flat to the ground, unlike the rest of the cemetery, where headstones are upright.
The green option will mean the type of burial akin to how people were interred before the American Civil War, Brown explained, That means free of chemicals – no embalming fluids – no concrete, or metal or fiberglass. Remains may be placed in a shroud on a burial plank, in a wicker casket, or in a wooden casket, so long as it is joined with dowels, and not metal nails, Brown said.
Green burials is a movement that goes back more than a decade, but advocates say public attention has increased in recent years, with more cemeteries tweaking practices to accommodate people who want to tread lightly, even in death, according to a June 9, 2017 Associated Press story by Michael Hill.
Green burials turn back the clock to the days before the Civil War, when embalming caught on as a way to preserve soldiers who died far from home, according to the AP. Burial vaults, which keep graves from collapsing and lawns level for mowing, became more widespread after World War II.
There are a couple of green cemeteries in Maine – including Cedar Brook Burial Ground in Limington and another in Orrington. Joyce Foley and her late partner Peter McHugh established the 3 1/2 acre Cedar Brook Burial Ground on their 150 acre property on Boothby Road in Limington in 2007.
She said McHugh had read about the green burial movement and decided to look into it. The property already had a cemetery on it dating to the mid-1700s, when the land was owned by Joshua Small.
Foley said there have been about 80 burials in the 300 lots that have been sold.
She said she finds people choose green burials for environmental reasons and the lower cost.
Brown said green burials will probably commence at the veterans cemetery in the spring of 2021. It is important to have the plantings in place, he noted.
“It needs to be a finished, beautiful space,” he said.
As to the rest of the project, the 554 pre-placed crypts will be located in the A section of the cemetery, to the left of the main entrance. Brown said the land there is glacial pack, and burials cannot currently take place there because of the soil type. That is why when developed, the crypts will be pre-placed, at no charge to he veteran or family members.
Brown said the project is set to commence this fall, and is scheduled to be completed by September 2020.
To date, 1,413 veterans, their spouse and eligible family members are buried at the cemetery.
— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 780-9016 or twells@journaltribune.com.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
