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    • Baltimore undertaker performs water cremation – before regulations were in place
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    Baltimore undertaker performs water cremation – before regulations were in place

    Umito Posted on

    Christine Condon
    | The Baltimore Sun (TNS)

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    BALTIMORE — It’s almost like a washing machine, if you ask Joseph H. Brown. The coffin-shaped metal tank at Brown Crematory in west Baltimore uses hot water, chemicals and a little agitation to dissolve human remains, leaving behind only bones.

    The practice, officially known as alkaline hydrolysis, was legalized during this year’s General Assembly session. But the State Board of Funeral Directors and Funeral Directors is still writing the regulations that will govern the practice in Maryland, according to its director. There is a law in place, but no regulation, creating what could be a legal gray area for carrying out the procedure.

    Brown, who installed his system in April, said he performed a water cremation. He believes he is the first to do so in the state. He charges $5,000 for this, compared to $1,700 for a traditional flame cremation.

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    “My mother, who is 94, jokes, ‘Why would anyone pay more for alkaline hydrolysis?'” Brown said. “Let me answer this question for you: Some people drive a Mercedes and some people drive a Pinto.”

    For his part, Brown insists he is respecting the law that took effect in October. On Thursday, alongside Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway, he invited reporters to a news conference at the funeral home, located in Mondawmin, south of Druid Hill Park.

    “I am a licensed funeral director. I have done thousands of cremations. Now I just do it in a different way,” he said. “Does the Council have a problem with me?” Well, they want me to wait for the regulations.

    Brown joked that if authorities came to arrest him for this, he should “make sure I wear a nice suit.” Media coverage might only draw more attention to water cremation, he said.

    “Advertising works,” he said.

    Erika Malone, the council’s executive director, said the regulations had not yet been released and there was no set timeline, but declined to comment further. The Maryland Department of Health, the board’s parent agency, did not immediately provide comment Friday afternoon.

    A growing consumer base

    Brown’s equipment uses water, ethanol and alkaline chemicals to break down a body in about three hours, tilting back and forth to agitate the solution, similar to a washing machine cleans clothes, he explained.

    Brown said he spent nearly $1 million on the water cremation equipment, which also includes a tank in which the water’s pH is reduced from 14 to 12.5 before being released into the Baltimore City sewer system, and heads to the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant for treatment. .

    For that, he received a permit from the city, Jennifer Combs, a spokeswoman for the city Department of Public Works, said in an email.

    According to the Cremation Association of North America, leftover water is considered sterile and contains salts, sugars, amino acids and peptides. There is no tissue or DNA left after the process is complete.

    After the process, the bone fragments are dried for several days before they can be reduced to an ash-like substance, which could be placed in an urn like other cremated remains. The water cremation process actually produces a higher volume of remains than fire cremation because less material is lost to the surrounding air, Brown said.

    Brown declined to say when his funeral home, a family-owned business he calls Maryland’s oldest African-American funeral home, completed its first water cremation, or how many of them were completed, saying that he did not want to give “ammunition” to the authorities.

    “I’m not doing anything illegal. I’m doing something different,” Brown said. “Some people might object, but I think there is a growing base of consumers who will stand up for me in providing this service to the state of Maryland – and nothing happens in the air.”

    A reduced carbon footprint

    Brown touted the process as a greener option for funeral care. For example, in water cremation, the liquid is heated to about 140 degrees Fahrenheit, colder than boiling.

    During fire cremation, the temperature reaches over 1,000 degrees, requiring a large amount of fuel. Brown Funeral Home uses propane, which has a lower carbon footprint than other fuels like natural gas. But for water cremation, the funeral home uses an electric water heater, avoiding the need for fossil fuels.

    At least one proposal for a traditional crematorium, that of Vaughn Greene Funeral Services of North Baltimore, has drawn criticism in Baltimore, in part because of neighbors’ concerns about air emissions from cremation.

    Conway, who represents the city’s Fourth District, proposed a bill in October that would further limit the zoning districts in which crematoriums can operate.

    “Our proposed rezoning is not opposition to funeral homes or sustainable death care alternatives,” Conway said in a news release. “We are, however, opposed to the installation of a human waste incinerator so close to our schools, our homes and our families. Aquamation offers an environmentally friendly choice, and today we support it.

    Some mourners view the water cremation process as gentler on the body, making it more supportive, Brown said.

    “Some people prefer water to fire,” Brown said. “Water is so spiritual.”

    But not everyone is convinced the trend will catch on, in the same way that once-unpopular cremation has grown to account for about 60 percent of the U.S. funeral care industry.

    Jack Mitchell, former president of the National Funeral Directors Association, said he thought natural organic reduction, in which a body is decomposed in soil, might prevail instead. The process was legalized in Maryland along with alkaline hydrolysis.

    “It’s even more environmentally friendly than alkaline hydrolysis, and it’s not gross,” said Jack Mitchell, who is also president of Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home in Towson. “People like the idea that the soil that is the end result, that is, the remains of the mother or grandmother, can then be used in the garden.”

    “When you see these flowers growing, you can say, ‘That’s mom,’” Mitchell said.

    Umito
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