MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. — What would be Montgomery County’s first fully green cemetery, Reflection Park, was granted preliminary approval by the Montgomery Planning Board Thursday, paving the way for the next step in the process.
Reflection Park is a nonprofit, multi-faith, 40-acre burial ground with one-third of the property serving as a natural burial site and the rest as a park for the community, according to Reflection Park’s co-founder Basil Eldadah.
“It is a practice in which bodies are interred in the ground without embalming, without concrete grave liners or vaults, or metal caskets, or caskets made out of hardwood," Eldadah said of green burials. “Green burial involves burial either in a shroud and or a readily biodegradable casket made out of softwood like pine or other materials like bamboo or willow or other materials."
The cemetery would be on New Hampshire Avenue in northern Silver Spring. Eldadah said there are some cemeteries in the D.C. region that have sections reserved for green burials, whereas this would serve as the first entirely green cemetery in Montgomery County.
Proponents of green burials say it preserves the natural environment and helps conserve natural resources. Natural burials also cost less; Eldadah said he expects it to cost less than half of the average burial in Maryland.
The proposed park sits on land that drains into the Patuxent River, which Eldadah said was an initial concern for the county.
“It's always a concern and it comes up in discussions of green burial," Eldadah said. "And I should say that one of our core missions is environmental sustainability and stewardship, so that is a concern of ours as well. Fortunately, we don't expect that water quality will be impacted at all by this project, and that's because of several design features that we've incorporated into the project. We've had extensive water table testing conducted at the site to ensure that the seasonally high water and table levels are still deep enough away from the graves.”
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As the area sits in the woods and a rural portion of Silver Spring, Eldadah said the cemetery will serve as a place for the community to utilize with trails spanning through the site that could one day connect to a surrounding county park.
“We envision this looking like a park," he said. "If you're just passing by the road, we expect that this will look no different from a park that one would typically go to just hike or picnic or spend time on the weekend with their family. Even inside the burial ground, we expect that it will look as much like a park as possible.”
Eldadah said the idea for the natural cemetery stemmed from his father’s death and his friend and co-founder who was astounded at the cost of a funeral. That idea began in 2019.
If the project receives full approval it is expected to open in 2022.