Opponents to a proposed crematorium in Pope County are getting more chances to speak against the plan now that public hearings have resumed.
In November, a businessman who wants to build a crematorium near an elementary school just outside Russellville withdrew the application but said he would file a revised proposal to put the facility about 600 feet farther from the school.
Jim Bob Humphrey, president of Humphrey Funeral Service in Russellville, has since done that and also has agreed to file a new permit request with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
Department spokesman Katherine Benenati said Monday that the agency is still working to finalize a date for that hearing, which will be in Russellville.
Humphrey said he expects to appear before the the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors about a month later to seek a construction license. That board held a public hearing in Russellville last month as part of the new licensing process.
After getting a construction permit, Humphrey also would have to return to the embalmers board to seek an operating license.
"That could very well be a year from now," he said.
Scott Steuber, who opposes the crematorium plan, said Monday that Humphrey's revised proposal wouldn't move the facility far enough away from Center Valley Elementary School, where one of his sons attends kindergarten.
Under the new proposal, Humphrey would build the crematorium 1,560 feet west of the school building and 1,000 feet west of the playground.
"We're talking about feet from a school. We're not talking about a quarter of a mile," Steuber said. "[A matter of] feet does not lessen the possible chance that it's going to hurt these kids" with fumes.
Opponents say children could be exposed to harmful emissions -- a position Humphrey has disputed.
According to a previous permit issued by the Environmental Quality Department, the proposed crematorium would meet state emission standards for six pollutants, including mercury, particulate matter and dioxides. It could burn up to 175 pounds per hour and 764 tons per year.
Despite the earlier permit, Steuber believes opponents have a better chance of prevailing before the environmental agency than before the embalmers board.
"It's going to come down to them determining if there is a possible risk" to the children, he said of the state's environmental officials.
Trying to alleviate residents' fears, Humphrey has said his crematorium could extract dental amalgam -- which contains mercury used in fillings and crowns -- before cremating bodies. That way, he would prevent any mercury from vaporizing at high temperatures and entering the air.
That suggestion raised the question of whether the crematorium would be practicing dentistry when removing the amalgam. The state Board of Dental Examiners tabled the issue and has not scheduled it for consideration.
"It kind of died on the vine," said the dental board's attorney, Kevin O'Dwyer.
O'Dwyer said Humphrey should make another request if he wants the board to address it.
Steuber said the issue "could be solved easier just by putting the crematorium somewhere else."
Trying to stop the facility with the dental issue is "kind of a pie in the sky approach to this," he said.
Humphrey doesn't believe such extractions would be dentistry. But if the dental board rules that they are, he said, the crematorium would comply with the decision by hiring a dentist for those procedures.
"We already have a dentist ... who has agreed to assist us with the procedure," he said.
Should that happen, there's also the question of whether the dental board would approve regulations affecting dental practice when it takes place inside a crematorium, he said.
State Desk on 01/13/2015