THE BREITUNG TOWNSHIP Board on Monday changed its ordinances to not allow green burials in Quinnesec Cemetery and to require burial vaults be used except for infants and stillborns. (Jim Paul/Daily News photo)

QUINNESEC — Despite growing in popularity, green burials will not be permitted in the Quinnesec cemetery.

The Breitung Township Board changed local ordinances Monday to prohibit the practice.

The idea behind a green burial is to let the deceased decompose completely. No embalming fluid is used. The body also is buried in a biodegradable wooden casket or one made from woven material, or simply wrapped in a shroud and placed in the ground without a burial vault.

While green burials are legal in Michigan, most local cemeteries have regulations that prohibit this method. Cemeteries in Iron Mountain and Foster City in Breen Township do allow green burials.

Breitung Township Department of Public Works Superintendent Jay Davis said green burials in the Quinnesec cemetery were ruled out for one major reason — the close proximity to the township’s wellhead protection area.

“We do not want decomposition going into our groundwater,” Davis said.

Allowing green burials would require a separate section of the cemetery as well, he noted, adding he is unaware of anyone requesting a green burial. But the township needed to put language in to be clear they would not be permitted in the Quinnesec cemetery.

The changes to the township’s cemetery ordinances also include a requirement that all burials have a vault, except for infants and stillborns.

Although not required by state law, the township wants the burial vaults to help prevent the grave from collapsing and keep embalming fluid from leaching into the groundwater, Davis said.

Stillborns and infants do not need a vault, as they come from the hospital in a sealed container, he explained.

Davis said that with the changes, Breitung Township is aligned with most other municipalities’ cemetery ordinances in the region.