As a doctor, as a Native Hawaiian physician, and as someone whose family has been in the funeral business for more than four decades, I truly welcome the prospect of water cremation being enacted into law during the current 2022 legislative session. There is no reason to defer this as legislators did last year. On the contrary, there are many reasons to ensure passage of House Bill 1894/Senate Bill 2828. Besides the cultural and environmental value of water cremation, our frustrations living through the current COVID pandemic should make us eager to embrace technology that will prepare us to better handle the next pandemic, if and when it hits us.
Change is always unsettling. But let’s remember that alkaline hydrolysis, or water cremation, is a concept that has been used for years by local veterinarians. It is a natural process that speeds up body decomposition, using heat, an alkaline reagent, pressure and gentle agitation. The fluid that ensues is completely sterile, destroying all pathogens including bacteria, viruses and prions. Its pH level is 11, the same as milk of magnesia. This makes it very safe to dispose of into the ground. Its nutrient-dense quality can be used in a family or memorial garden, thus completing the circle of life.
Culturally, water cremation is a blessing as it returns the bones of our loved ones to us, clean and available to care for according to tradition. Others can have the bones returned to them as ash — without all the pollution and generation of greenhouse gasses associated with flame-cremation. That is why water cremation is sometimes referred to as green cremation, a process that uses less than one-fourth the energy of flame cremation.
What most people don’t realize is that in a morgue during an autopsy or during the embalming process in a mortuary, blood and other bodily fluids go directly down the drain, carrying with it all the bacteria, viruses and medications that the body may have harbored. The same is what happens when we have sewage spills that pollute our rivers and seas, beaches and reefs with all manner of contamination. By contrast, the fluid from the water cremation process is sterile, disease-free and carries no harmful chemicals.
It’s time that the people of Hawaii have the choice available in 21 other states of choosing a process for the final disposition of the bodies of their loved ones that is kinder to the aina.
That process is water cremation which releases none of the harmful toxins and carcinogens that flame cremation does. With water cremation there is no release of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride and mercury. The pollutants and carcinogens than are aerosolized from flame crematoriums can cause short and long term health problems.
Mercury emissions alone can have devastating health impacts, including harming an unborn child.
Some may argue that flame crematoriums have filtration systems to minimize the harm. But these are unregulated and the prospect of failure always exists. In the case of water cremation, any possible failure of the system would take place within sealed, self-contained vessels in a single room. So there is no risk to the environment through aerosolization, leakage or spills in the unlikely event of a system failure.
Water cremation is one more sensible step toward preserving our beautiful Hawaii from the relentless assault on limited land. I am hopeful that our lawmakers will seize the moment to pass HB 1894/SB 2828 and make water cremation a possibility for all of us who, even in passing, wish to do our part to be kind to our island home.
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OFF TODAY:
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is off.
Dr. Alin Vaun Pono Ledford practices medicine in Hilo.
