Re: Our community need help on Cremation & Embalmment studies

["Alex J. Sagady & Associates" <ajs@sagady.com>]

A properly operated and designed crematorium should not
cause air quality problems, although a 100 foot distance to
the nearest receptor may raise some eyebrows.   How tall
is the crematorium stack, and how tall is the building on which
it is located??   A good engineering practice stack in this 
situation should be about 1.5 times the building height
in order to avoid aerodynamic downwash.

I would expect mercury emissions from a crematoria because
of the melting and vaporization of dental amalgams.  However,
it is not likely that a crematoria would cause excursions over
target health-based screening level concentrations for mercury downwind of
such a small source that would be of concern from an 
inhalation toxicity standpoint anywhere in the immediate neighborhood
of such a facility.  Such mercury emissions could be eliminated by 
removal of the amalgams prior to cremation.

EPA's inhalation reference concentration in its IRIS system for elemental
mercury vapor
is 0.3 micrograms per cubic meter on a 24 hour average.   Although this
is a very  low acceptable ambient concentration, it is still not likely that
such a small source would cause 24 hour average concentrations to be 
anywhere near this threshold.

If the crematorium is properly operated and maintained and there is 
no attempt to charge more bodies to the combustion chamber than
the unit is designed to process, there should be no problem with 
poor combustion, particulate matter, odors or release of toxic air 
pollutants, other than mercury emissions noted above.   The only 
other potential emissions of a toxic nature could come from the 
incineration of batteries used for powering pacemakers, but I don't have
information on those battery types.



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Alex J. Sagady & Associates        Email:  ajs@sagady.com

Environmental Enforcement, Technical Review, Public Policy and
Communications on Air, Water and Waste Issues
and Community Environmental Protection

PO Box 39  East Lansing, MI  48826-0039  
(517) 332-6971 (voice); (517) 332-8987 (fax)
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