2024 Legislative session

NOR (Natural Organic Reduction) 

Please support SB102 https://recompose.life/human-composting-legislative-advocacy/ by contacting. Find: your Utah Legislators

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Prepaying For Plots

IF you prepay for a plot (not recommended), do start to pay for all the expenses that go with it (opening/closing, a grave liner or vault headstone, "inspection" fees) because prices will rise and they probably will not keep you informed, even if a change of ownership (which means even more price hikes).

Cemeteries that actually publish their policies & procedures online (like Orem) are better than corporate cemeteries, like "Dignity", that hide theirs. 

And some cemeteries make it difficult to resell plots so read the fine print before buying.

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"Investing" in City Cemetery Plots

Price-gouging is happening amongst city cemeteries in Utah: If you pre-purchase a plot the contract will say "Prices subject to change". What happens is that City Councils "raise revenue" through higher cemetery fees for opening and closing, without any notice to plot owners, who only find out AFTER a loved ones dies, that the city thought of a way to 'make money off the plot  AGAIN ...through new higher fees.

We spoke with a family (in 2017) who told us they had to pay $2100 for opening/closing because their deceased loved one wasn't a resident of Bountiful city any longer.  A deceased parent had purchased several plots many years before the city council voted for exorbitant non-resident fees. City Councils know that families move away and aren't watching how they vote. So they have non-residents by the neck to pay 4x what a resident pays.  

What's normal?

Orem city (2022) the amounts are close to each other for opening/closing, aka "interment":
Residents $635

Non-resident $795 

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What's NOT normal?

Kaysville city (2017)

Resident $650

Non-resident $2650

Last we knew if you moved away from Kaysville to live in a care center, you were no longer considered a resident of Kaysville, despite how many years you paid taxes there. This was the case in Alpine city, until it was exposed.
 

Burial at a Veteran's Cemetery

Honorably discharged veterans get FREE burial at a National Veterans Cemetery & Utah's State Veterans Cemetery.  Free burial often includes a grave plot (or niche in the case of ashes), vault, opening and closing, marker, and setting fee. 

Spouses of Veterans get burial for under $828 plus the cost of a vault.

Utah's Veteran Cemetery & Memorial Park : 801-254-9036

17111 S Camp Williams Rd

Bluffdale, UT 84065

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The"DD 214", is a document of the United States Department of Defense, issued upon a military service member's retirement, separation or discharge from active-duty military.  This is needed to get burial in a Veteran's cemetery.  If it is lost do not wait until after death to try to obtain one.

Reservists and National Guard retired personnel with 20 yrs of service are eligible for burial also, as are surviving spouses and dependent children (under rules established by the State of Utah:  Google "Utah 71-7-3" to read it).

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Utah Families can act as their own funeral director when caring for their veteran dead with proper paperwork from the Health Department's Vital Records Office (located in the county where death occurred). Family may bring their veteran to the cemetery themselves, make their own casket and bypass a mortuary completely, saving several thousand dollars. (see how on our "DIY Funeral" page)

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Burial on Your Own Rural Land

Utah Law 8-3-1. effective 5/13/2014  Plats of cemeteries shall be recorded. 

(1)An executive officer of an organization in control of a cemetery, including a municipality or a cemetery maintenance district, or an individual owner in control of a cemetery, offering burial lots for sale in any county, shall file and cause to be recorded in the office of the county recorder of the county within which the respective cemetery is situated an accurate plat of the cemetery.

(2)The plat required under Subsection (1) shall clearly show:

(a)the sections of burial lots which have been disposed of and the names of the persons owning or holding each burial lot; and

(b)the sections of burial lots held for disposal.

(3)An executive officer or owner shall file additional plats of any addition to a cemetery before offering for sale any burial lots located in the cemetery.

(4)A county recorder may not collect any fee for filing and recording an original plat required under this

section.

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Sanpete County Forbidding Burial on Rural Property 

Discovered March 2022 (restriction encoded in 2014)

Sandpete County Land Use Ordinance was changed to:
"Cemetery/ Crematoriums- A burial place or grounds owned, operated and maintained by a municipality with endowment care feasibility and disallowed for private persons or entities in all Sanpete County zones." 

Good on them for the brevity by which they strip you of your property rights.

Bad on them for taking those rights at all.

Word on the street is that the restriction occurred in order to reduce the number of abandoned and mismanaged cemeteries [punisher mentality]. An inquiry found the real reason was that TOO MANY LAND OWNERS WANTED TO EXERCISE THE RIGHT! But how about they consider publishing general guidelines as a solution [voluntary mentality]. Suggestion for model wording for rural burial & a history of the intended uses of park-like cemeteries

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Database of rural & non-commercial cemeteries:

https://history.utah.gov/cemeteries/ click on "Find a Cemetery" to start your search for one that will allow simple, vault-free burial.

One Dispositioner living in a community with a flexible city cemetery wrote,"Four of us dug his grave and I would highly recommend that because it was a labor of love." 

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More on Natural Burial​​

Funeral Consumers Alliance Green Burial pdf brochure

Dead Bodies and Disease: The "Danger" That Doesn't Exist

Conservation Burial Grounds on YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQM35Rngryc (start at 1:05)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUnmkyCGMA8

Promession a form of body disposition not yet available in the U.S..

Getting Governments & Communities on Board with Green Burials

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Simple Natural Burial

In 1993 the modern idea of green burial really took hold with a movement to allow the body to return to the earth unimpeded again. More on the science and logic  https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/science_green_burial.html

Common elements:

-No embalming

-Use a natural casket or shroud

-No concrete or plastic vault (lid) liner (no lid) encasing the casket

-Burial is in an area with native trees, shrubs and flowers, with no man-made additions

-Burial is typically 3ft deep for shroud burial (3.5 to 4 ft deep for casket)

-Grave markers are those that do not intrude on the landscape

-A record is kept of exact location of each burial, either using global positioning coordinates (GPS) or the old rebar, string and measuring tape method.

Body Composting 

Available in Washington State and Boulder, Colorado A body will reach at least "131 degrees F for 72 hrs", transformation to soil completed within 4-6 months. Then any remaining bone is crumbled and mixed into the the 1-2 cubic yards of rich soil that had been a body.

The Colorado Burial Preserve in Florence, Colorado is designed specifically to receive this special soil on the surface of the ground, but some or all can be kept by the family and brought anywhere.  Seth Viddal presents on this process of body composting, complete with a slide show starting at 24:30, Q&A starting at 42:00.

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