T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Marshall County Planning and Zoning Director Tyler Kelley presented the Board of Supervisors with an official green burial policy during Wednesday morning’s regular meeting.

After a rural resident approached the Marshall County Board of Supervisors with a green burial proposal on two prior occasions during previous meetings, County Planning and Zoning Director Tyler Kelley presented a formal policy on Wednesday morning, which did not require board approval as it is simply aligning the county with Iowa Code.

Since Patrick Lynott first addressed the board last August, Kelley said he has been working alongside the Assessor’s Office and the Auditor/Recorder’s Office and researching the Iowa Cemetery Act as well as tax changes and/or implications for parcels designated for such burials. What they ultimately came up with was a form for applicants to fill out that will help with tracking green burials and “ensuring that they’re protected going forward.”

As he called around to other counties, Kelley said there was no standard operating procedure — some have dealt with it on a regular basis, but they are “few and far between.”

“There wasn’t much for us to go on, and even contacting funeral home directors from the Iowa Cemetery Association, this just wasn’t a widespread phenomenon like it is out west in some of the other states where they’re seeing this a lot more,” he said.

The stipulations for a green burial in Marshall County, he added, will include the following:

1. Having a survey done allowing for a permanent easement to ensure a house isn’t built over the site or it isn’t farmed over in the future;

2. A signed agreement with a funeral director in keeping with the Iowa Cemetery Act to ensure that the GPS location of the body can be recorded;

3. The burial area not being located inside of a floodplain; and

4. The area is zoned as A-1 agricultural.

Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Carol Hibbs asked about depth requirements for the burial, and Kelley replied that it was either six or nine feet.

“That was more for critters and everything else too. I got a lot of different side notes from the funeral directors when I did talk to them about that particular process,” he said.

Kelley noted that the green burials will be permitted through the geopermit program currently used for septic, building and address changes, and the permit will be sent out to the executor of the deceased’s estate and the funeral director performing the burial. Hibbs also inquired about how the policy compared to other counties in Iowa, and Kelley said Story County has only been using paper copies of the permits — which has resulted in weekend calls to present the required paperwork to the family the day of the ceremony.

“Having this on file ahead of time, I think, is gonna be a little bit easier for us. The funeral, or whoever (is) concerned can contact us and say ‘Is the form filled out? Do you have a copy of it?’ Hopefully they should have all that information ahead of time. I would rather be proactive than retroactive on this,” he said.

Hibbs told Kelley that she knew the policy had been a lot of work for him, which prompted a joking reply that it wasn’t brought up in the job interview before he took on the combined P&Z director, sanitarian and weed commissioner position last year.

“This was my first real look into the planning and zoning world,” he said.

County Engineer Paul Geilenfeldt asked Kelley if the A-1 zoning designation locked a parcel into that classification forever, and he responded that there was nothing in Iowa Code to “transition that property or protect it initially.”

“Our thoughts and the thoughts I’ve gotten from local counties is (that) if there’s a body interred on A-1, there’s not gonna be a lot of people that are gonna buy it for a housing development,” Kelley said. “As far as I go, there’s nothing in state code that’ll protect it one way or another. It’s just (that) with a permanent easement, I thought that would be the easiest way, from the county side, to cover us.”

Permits will be approved through Kelley’s office and the Auditor/Recorder’s Office, and the landowner will pay to have a survey conducted. Marshall County Joel Phillips then asked if permits only applied to one body at a time or if multiple members of a family could be included.

“It’s for one plot, one burial,” Hibbs said.

While he acknowledged that the topic of mass burials had been brought up, Kelley reiterated the policy of one individual, one survey, one body. He added that he had been contacted by officials in several counties to the south who may be interested in adopting the same policy.

Kelley then noted that a family cemetery is classified differently under the Iowa Cemetery Act. Supervisor Jarret Heil asked if the board needed to take official action, but it was deemed unnecessary as Kelley was simply bringing the county up to speed with Iowa Code.

“Thank you for all that work on that. Nan (Benson), for your department, all good to go? Any issues?” he asked, to which she said there were none. “Thank you guys for working together on that. You know, the interesting projects in county government you have no idea you’re gonna get into. You learn a lot, and maybe it takes more time than you expect. But thank you for that, and the people of Marshall County appreciate that.”

Hibbs joked that Kelley would soon be traveling to other counties to present on the issue, and Benson said other auditors have already asked her.

In other business, the board:

• Approved a proclamation read by County Attorney Jordan Gaffney recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

• Approved the consent agenda as listed, which included several changes of status for employees in the county attorney’s office. Gaffney explained that he downsized his staff from nine to eight attorneys but increased their pay as a result of the increased workload.

• Approved awarding a contract to Manatt’s Inc of Brooklyn in the amount of $862,755.59 for Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) resurfacing with milling on E41 from the Story County line east 3 ½ miles to State Center and south â…œ of a mile to 2nd Street NW.

• Approved the quarterly transfer of $750,000 from the Rural Services Fund to the Secondary Roads Fund.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.