Bellows Falls continues hearing on crematorium
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The former Vermont Treats, which produced gourmet dog bones, would be converted to a crematorium, according to plans by Mary DeSimone of Bellows Falls. The Green Mountain Railroad Station is seen in the background. SUSAN SMALLHEER / RUTLAND HERALD |
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By Susan Smallheer STAFF WRITER - Published: October 23, 2009
BELLOWS FALLS – Local support for a proposed crematorium was hard to find Wednesday during the first public hearing on the proposed new business.
Mary DeSimone of Bellows Falls wants to install a two-oven, or "retort," crematorium in the former Vermont Treats building on The Island, next to the Green Mountain Railroad station as well as the Waypoint Visitors' Center, home to the Great Falls Regional Chamber of Commerce.
DeSimone said she wanted to establish the business to help local families "take care of their own" and avoid the traditionally high costs of funerals. She said her business, which is currently unnamed, would also include a small chapel for families to use if they wanted.
DeSimone plans on cremating both human and pet remains, in separate retorts, but in the same building, which 100 years ago housed the Vermont Farm Machinery Co., famous for its cream separator.
Robert J. Winterbottom of Laurel, Md., who plans on selling the retorts to DeSimone and installing them, told the Rockingham Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Adjustment that there would be no emissions from the two ovens and only a "heat shimmer" coming out of the stacks.
But several "interested parties" said they were opposed to the crematorium being built downtown, and particularly in an area of the Bellows Falls village that has been targeted for tourism.
Sharon Boccelli, owner of the popular nearby restaurant, Boccelli's on the Canal, said the crematorium was incompatible.
"I'm making meatballs and they're burning bodies," she said.
Pat Fowler of Village Booksellers said there is a big effort in the village to turn that area of The Island into a tourist-friendly area with activities, businesses and paths and a smoking crematorium would work against that.
Roger Riccio, the executive director of the Great Falls Chamber, who is also the elected Bellows Falls village president, questioned the wisdom of putting the plant in a tourist hot spot.
Riccio's office is in The Waypoint Visitors' Center, which is on the other side of the railroad tracks from the proposed facility.
Winterbottom, who said he had installed and operated several crematoria, said that if they were operated properly there should be no smell or smoke.
That fact was echoed on Thursday by Richard Valentinetti, head of the air quality division of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
Valentinetti said that while it wasn't law, most crematoria usually got their local permits first and then applied to the state, the same path Winterbottom and DeSimone said they were following.
Valentinetti said there were currently about a dozen crematoria in the state and they were permitted by the state. Before it got its state air permit, the oven, or retort, would have to be tested to check for emissions.
"The way a modern crematorium is engineered now, anything that is left is burnt off in a secondary chamber. The question is can they maintain the heat in the secondary chamber? If they can, everything should go to complete combustion, and that's why we require a test on the unit," he said.
He said that "99 percent" of all toxic chemicals are burned in the second chamber of the incinerator. He said the amount of mercury released by burning a human body, and the mercury fillings in the person's mouth, is tiny. He said his office had no permit currently pending for the Bellows Falls facility.
During the local hearing, several other residents said it was just the wrong location for such a facility, noting it is next to the village's major tourist attraction, the Green Mountain Railroad, and the Waypoint Visitors Center, which contains a local history display as well as the chamber office. The local farmers' market is also held on the grounds of the center.
Additionally, the proposed site is on a sharp curve and would not allow any on-street parking, said Bob DeRusha, chairman of the planning commission.
DeSimone said employees or visitors could use the nearby public parking.
DeSimone will lease the building from the Moisis Family Trust, and also wants to use a portion of the building to establish a clothing manufacturing plant. She said she wants to create pajamas for diabetics, with special accommodations for their insulin pumps. The planning commission had few questions on that proposal.
But in the end, the board decided it needed more information from DeSimone about the proposal and agreed to continue the hearing on the project.
susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com
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