Hippie Graveyard Rejected by Neighbors

A resounding defeat of a very stupid hippie idea:

Elizabeth Collins, a gardener, birdwatcher and a self-described "renaissance woman," wanted to start a "natural" cemetery where bodies would be buried without embalming, coffins or vaults.

She and a partner bought a plot of land here and wrote a business plan that identified pagans, "old hippies," penny pinchers, environmentalists and Muslims -- who traditionally bury the dead without caskets -- as their target market. There would be room for 7,500 customers. Dead pets would be welcome, too.

The idea didn't sit well with the living.

Many residents in this socially conservative rural patch of central Georgia worried the cemetery would contaminate their water supply. Some also objected in principle to unconventional burial practices.

So on Nov. 4, the Macon-Bibb County commissioners killed the cemetery plan by voting in a new ordinance that requires a "leak-proof casket or vault" for burials. It became one of the first legal moves against a growing brand of environmentalism that is entering the graveyard.

Down the road from the proposed burial ground, Cherrie Mittmann was stewing. Like most of her neighbors, Ms. Mittmann, a 59-year-old housecleaner, draws water from a well on her property. She worried that decomposing remains would leach into the aquifer feeding the well, and that animals would dig up unboxed bodies. Ms. Mittmann says she has no proof that either scenario would play out, but doesn't want to wonder what her dog might be holding in its maw. Natural-cemetery advocates say stories of animals digging up human remains are little more than urban myths.