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Friday, February 20, 2009 KEEPING THE SOUTH EAST INFORMED SINCE 1861 $1.00 inc. GST

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INSIDE SPORT: TWENTY/20 CRICKET GRAND FINAL TONIGHT > PAGE 40

Leakage from burials into the groundwater is a ...

Dead uncertainty of cyanide contamination in

BY ANELIA BLACKIE
Email: anelia@tbw.com.au
BODILY fluids and harmful
chemical elements such as
mercury from dental fill-
ings may be leaching from
cemeteries into the South
East’s precious groundwater
system.
While the mass burial of
animal carcases in emer-
gency situations is strictly
regulated by authorities,
limited cemeteries legisla-
tion gives funeral directors
the right to bury the dead
with little regard for the
environment.
South East Funeral
Services owner Peter
Zukauskas told The Border
Watch funeral directors
were not regulated by any
law to prevent the leaching
of harmful elements into the
environment.
“Thirty years in business
has taught me to line all
coffins with plastic,” Mr
Zukauskas said.
“Funeral directors don’t
have to do it, but I do it as
a precaution. This way eve-
rything is safely contained
inside the coffin.”
According to Mr
Zukauskas, there are no
regulations to prevent people
from placing possible harm-
ful items inside coffins for
sentimental reasons.
“I have seen people put
items such as beer, wine, golf
clubs and toys in coffins, and
that’s their choice,” he said.
“But we always remove
pacemakers because they
can cause an electric shock
and we remove batteries
from toys because they can
explode during cremation.
It is an occupational health
and safety regulation.”
However, Mount Gambier
City Council operational
services director Daryl
Sexton said he doubted if
metals could pose a risk to
the environment.
“The laws of sustainabil-
ity suggest that materials
should not be put back into
the earth at a higher con-
centration than they are
removed,” Mr Sexton said.
“From my limited under-
standing, the main concern
is really the decomposition
of bodies.”
Research into the
environmental impact of
leaking bodily fluids into
groundwater is very limited
in Australia, but in both the
UK and USA, research has
proved contamination of
groundwater near a number
of cemeteries.
In the UK, research was
done to establish the origin
groundwater when scientists
discovered cyanide was leak-
ing from coffins in a nearby
cemetery. The bodies were
buried in the 1800s when
cyanide was widely used in
medicines.
According to the
Lake Terrace Cemetery
Conservation Management
Plan, it became necessary to
establish an official burial
ground when Mount Gambier
was founded in 1854 after
“burials were conducted
on station properties or in
unmarked graves”.
An Environmental
Protection Authority spokes-
man told The Border Watch
that the Department of
Health required adequate
buffer distance from the
proposed site of burial to
water courses.
“A suitable distance would
be at least 100 metres from
the nearest surface water
and a one in 100 year aver-
age return interval flood
event area,” he said.
“Furthermore, it is recom-
mended the burial not take
place within two metres
of groundwater with a pFuneral directors are not regulated by law to prevent leaking of
water quality greater than harmful elements into groundwater. South East Funeral Services
12,000mg/L total dissolved owner Peter Zukauskas lines coffins with plastic as a precaution.
salts.” Picture: ANELIA BLACKIE.

WEATHER Mount Gambier today - Possible shower. 22o – full report page 41 TV GUIDE Pages 17-18 COMICS Page 24 CLASSIFIEDS Pages 27-33

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