Green Burials Voted Down

February 13, 2007

Author: Dan Dewitt

Source: St. Petersburg Times

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/13/Hernando/Green_burials_voted_d.shtml

BROOKSVILLE - In a cemetery planned for a 5-acre tract near Istachatta, the markers would have been wooden slabs or crosses.

The bodies would have been buried without embalming; the caskets were to be wooden boxes meant to decompose quickly.

That is Bosnian tradition, said Vedad Sakovic, president of the Bosnian Member Association. It also almost exactly matches the practices of the fast-growing green burial movement.

"It's totally natural," said Sue Hughes, a Brooksville Realtor who represented the Bosnian group before the Hernando County Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday. "This is a really big thing right now."

But residents of Deerhaven Estates, near the planned cemetery site, were not convinced.