Power to the People.

That was the sentiment at City Hall Aug. 22 as city staff and the Planning Commission agreed public input helped to kill the idea of ever having a crematorium on Bainbridge Island. That recommendation now goes to the City Council.

Tim Dinan of Cook Family Funeral Home introduced the idea months ago, but has since withdrawn the idea from the Hillcrest Cemetery site due to backlash from the community. He said the service was needed because locals were having to send bodies of loved ones out of state for cremation since crematoriums in the area were so booked up.

But in public comments Aug. 22, Lisa Neal said after checking around that’s just not true. “People are not stacking up like cordwood waiting to be incinerated,” she said. Neal added the issue should not have even advanced this far. She said there is no zoning on BI that would accommodate an “incinerator, which is what a crematorium is… We could have just started there and not had all of this.”

Neal also said that Dinan had told everyone that the new state-of-the-art incinerators have pollution controls. But, “There’s not much art to it yet,” she said, adding they don’t have filters or a way to recapture particulates. “It’s not like a catalytic converter on your car,” she said, adding neighbors have to watch for dark smoke then report it to the Puget Sound Clear Air Agency. After that, it can take weeks for an inspector to come out. “There is no monitoring.”

Ron Peltier agreed that oversight by the PSCAA is “weak.” He added that the City Council previously had shown support for a crematorium. It also has shown “deference” to Planning Commission recommendations. So if it doesn’t want to prohibit a crematorium, he suggested the council hire a consultant who “would protect the welfare, safety and health of Bainbridge Islanders.” But he said if a law of that nature is drafted, “The net result would make it hard to build one” on BI.

Lisa Macchio thanked the Planning Commission for listening to the public and paying attention to the information that was shared. She said city staff did not have the expertise on the issue, so the public did research to “dig deep and look at the facts.”

Dave Buck said he has experience working with emissions, and he has concerns about the amount of mercury. He also said monitoring equipment just isn’t reliable. He said airsheds on BI are enclosed and don’t change much, despite being on Puget Sound. “I don’t want one in my neighborhood.”

City Council liaison Ashley Mathews thanked the community and city staff for following up on the issue and even Dinan, “who listened to the community and decided not to do it” at Hillcrest.

After the Planning Commission voted for the ban, chair Ariel Birtley said one of their goals “is to represent the community.”

Commission members basically rubber-stamped city staff’s recommendation on the ban. Peter Schaab said, “It feels like we’re all in the same boat.”

The only change was they wanted to make sure something like pet cremation didn’t come to BI either. So they voted on an amendment to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

There was some discussion on other options to cremation that are cutting age—such as composting and mushroom burial. But city planning director Patty Charnas said, “We know there is interest in other” types of end-of-life services. But the city can always follow up on those as they come up.

“If there are other specific technologies down the road…we can tackle them at that time rather than try to envision” what could happen in the future, Planning Commissioner Sean Sullivan said. He added that he’d never received so many emails on a topic, and he apologized for not being able to respond to all of them yet.

In introducing the topic for discussion, Charnas said public concern led to a six-month moratorium so the city could determine what conditions and zoning would be needed to have a crematorium.

As usual, city staff came up with three options: prohibit them; allow them in an industrial zone with specific standards; or do what Kitap County does and require a conditional use permit that requires things like being 200 feet from residential properties.

Another reason for the moratorium was because there was insufficient information on public health impacts of toxic emissions. “Research science takes time and money,” Charnas said.