Cremation Society Opens Boscawen Office
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Meet the Staff:
Administrative
Manager,
Joanne Levesque |
Officer Manager Joanne Levesque has been working in the funeral service industry for over 25 years. A student of bereavement counseling and aftercare, Joanne oversees many aspects of planning for the firm and ensuring all the details of a cremation services are carried out accordingly.
A Manchester native, Joanne recently moved back to the Queen City from Goffstown.
She is a parishoner and serves as a Eucharist minister at St. Patrick Church. She volunteers her time for a number of non-profit organizations and sits on several board of directors. She is also very active with local senior groups. She is the founder and Past President of the Medvil Association.
In her spare time, Joanne enjoys tennis, biking and traveling.
Special Holiday Remembrance Event announced
We are pleased to announce a special holiday event for families served at the Society over the past year, as well as local families that may want to participate in a special remembrance service during the Holiday season.
On December 12, families are invited to attend this special ceremony at the Crematoin Soceity chapel at 243 Hanover Street in Manchester.
For more information, contact the society at (800) 493-8001 or contact Michele Phaneuf Plasz at
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Cremation Society Opens Boscawen Office
The Cremation Society is proud to announce the opening of its second office in Boscawen at the former site of Affordable Funeral and Cremation Services (AFCS). For families that had made pre-arrangments with AFCS, all contracts will be honored and remain in force.
This second location now provides us with an second location to better serve the needs of central and northern New Hampshire. And, with its proximity to the New Hamsphire State Veterans Cemetery (only 1 1/2 miles away), the Society can handle veterans services even more effectively.
An open house is scheduled at the Boscawn facility at 172 King Street on Wednesday September 26 from 1 until 4. Refreshments will be served and there will be free giveaways. Staff will be on hand to answer questions and also unveil plans for our new on-site chapel. |
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Save the Date: Society presents Veterans Day Event |
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The Cremation Society, in conjunction with it parent company, Phaneuf Funeral Homes and Crematorium and the Community Service Events Series is proud to honor former military personnel with a special Veterans Event on November 8 at 1:00 pm.
The afternoon will include a memorial service for the deceased and information about Veterans death benefits as well as an opportunity to register and reserve a plot at the Veterans cemetary in Boscawen. Prizes will be available to attendees and refreshments will be served.
For more information and/or reserve your place at this special event, contact the Society at (800) 493-8001 or email . |
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The legislature made a mistake:
Resomation is NOT a form of cremation |
An editorial by Cremation Society President Buddy Phaneuf
As the largest provider of cremation services in New Hampshire and a proponent of better crematory regulations, I am troubled by recent legislation tacked onto the end of New Hampshire ’s cremation law. The new legislation effectively authorizes a process called resomation as if it were a form of cremation. It is not.
Resomation is a body-disposal process that uses alkaline hydrolysis, which is water-based, like the process used for making soap. Recently, news reports following the new legislation have positioned resomation as an ecologically-friendly form of cremation. Resomation should be regulated, but not under cremation laws.
Sandy Sullivan, the Managing Director of the Glasgow, Scotland-based Resomation, Ltd., which manufactures resomation equipment, has stated that “Resomation is not a cremation process, and what applies to cremation does not necessarily apply to Resomation.”
Yet resomation is being characterized as a form of cremation. State Representatives Bicknell, Kennedy and Cataldo sponsored the bill last year to allow resomation in New Hampshire . The new resomation law was tagged to the end of the current crematory regulations, even though the manufacture admits that resomation is not cremation.
Those promoting the concept in New Hampshire have attached an eco-friendly moniker to the resomation process, but alkaline hydrolysis demands substantial electrical hookups to heat the water and alkaline in a large steel vat. According to the manufacturer’s website, the byproduct of the resomation process is an innocuous liquid of amino acids, peptides, sugar, and mild soap. This byproduct is then discharged into the sewer system. In May of 2002, the Scientific Steering Committee of the European Commission on Health and Consumer Protection issued a report on the “Treatment of Animal Waste by Means of High Temperature and Corresponding High Pressure Alkaline Hydrolysis.” One of their findings was that under certain warm conditions and if sufficient volume exists without extensive dilution, byproducts of the process could coagulate and solidify. This residue would then be “accessible to sewer vermin.”
On this evidence, the Steering Committee considered direct discharge of the liquid residues into the waste stream without further treatment to be inappropriate. For this process to be as environmentally friendly as current cremation operations, more environmental study and regulation should be applied.
There is also a disclosure issue for consumers. Families who have selected cremation through a funeral home offering resomation should be told if they might instead be getting resomation, which is not cremation. It is inappropriate and misleading to the public for a funeral home to position resomation as something akin to cremation, a process that has been accepted and performed throughout the world for thousands of years. Many religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism include cremation as part of their funeral rites. It is questionable that resomation would be an acceptable alternative. In New Hampshire where the cremation rate exceeds 50%, many residents are familiar with the traditional cremation process. However, if the State allows resomation to be considered a type of cremation and regulated as such, would funeral homes selling resomation have to disclose that they are utilizing this process? And would consumers get to choose which “cremation process” they would prefer or would that be the choice of the funeral home?
State regulators need to do a much better job of thinking this through and moving resomation out of the crematory regulations. Resomation should have its own statutes under the funeral service laws, with its own set of rules and regulations that follow consumer and environmental requirements. Given the discharge and byproduct issues associated with resomation, it is also disheartening that the State EPA did not weigh in on this process before it was approved.
The bottom line is that resomation is not cremation. Resomation is something completely different and should not be regulated the same as cremation.
Our state experienced something of a black eye with the Bayview Crematory scandal a few years ago – a product of insufficient oversight. New laws have since been established and regulators are better able to enforce proper crematory procedures. Trying to regulate resomation under existing crematory rules is just setting us up for more trouble. Resomation needs its own set of rules. |
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