Water cremation equipment / Photo courtesy Montgomery County Council
Funeral homes could offer a different form of cremation, known as water cremation, after county councilmembers voted unanimously to approve the option.
How It Works
Alkaline hydrolysis, or water cremation, is an alternative to traditional flame cremation.
“At the end of the process, just like with fire cremation, the family is given back an urn with their loved one’s remains,” explained Lily Buerkle, who is co-founder of Willow Green Funerals said. She is also a licensed mortician and funeral director.
The difference is in the method, which Buerkle explained during a public hearing while the bill was under consideration. The body is put in a specialized vessel with water, heat, and alkaline chemicals, “which gently breaks down the body.”
The resulting chemicals are broken down, treated, and become “a completely sterile, DNA-free solution that just goes down the drain,” according to a council legislative attorney. WSSC regulates that process.
The bones go in a machine called a “cremulator” and that produces the ashes.
The Intention
Councilmember Natali Fani-González is lead sponsor of the legislation.
“We’re all going to die, so we have to talk about it and see how the process is going to be, before you leave the decision to your family,” Fani-González said during a recent council committee meeting.
“This is part of the conversation,” she said.
“What this allows is a more environmentally-sustainable option for families to be able to undertake,” Councilmember Andrew Friedson, who is on the committee that reviewed the bill, said Tuesday ahead of the vote.
Flame cremation burns fossil fuels. Water cremation uses 90 percent less energy and produces zero emissions, according to Buerkle.
Also, it offers an additional option during difficult times.
“Unfortunately, this is an industry that is in many ways controlled by a very small number of companies, which make prices very, very high and options very, very limited,” Friedson said. “So anything we can do even on the margins to provide more choices to families, to provide more information to families who are going through their most difficult moments and the most impossible choices they have to make, I think is a good thing.”
Buerkle said “more times than I can remember,” she gets a call from a family who wants the water cremation option but could not get it.
Council Votes Yes
The zoning change approved Tuesday allows water cremation as part of funeral homes and crematories, for both humans and pets.
The council is providing the land-use option, and the state will handle standards and regulations, according to Friedson.
“This opens the door to that,” he said. There is a draft proposal on portions of the regulation on the state’s website.
A Planning Board representative previously expressed support.
“They appreciate that this is providing sort of an additional, potentially greener way of handling our final needs,” Benjamin Berbert said on behalf of the board. “And they support the fact that it’s a pretty discreet operation that can happen in existing funeral homes and therefore is pretty compatible with existing neighborhoods.”
Last year, the General Assembly passed the Green Death Care Options Act, which established requirements for water cremation facilities.
