Call for cremation rules grows louder

By John Duchemin
Advertiser Staff Writer

A window with venetian blinds looks into Claus Hansen's crematorium, where two hearses are parked next to a tool rack, and a worker sweeps fragments of bone from inside the still-hot cremation chamber.

Embalmer Yolanda Milligan inspects a casket before it enters the crematorium at Moanalua Mortuary. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

"We designed this room expecting to get one or two people a year who wanted to use it," Hansen said. "But in the last two months, we've used this window an awful lot. And the question, 'Where do you do your cremation?' That gets asked every time someone comes in."

The Tri-State Crematory scandal in Noble, Ga., in which investigators in February unearthed hundreds of supposedly cremated bodies, has awakened fears of families nationwide. Many people now demand to see their loved ones cremated, to ensure the ashes they receive are from the correct body.

"Everyone has the same question: 'Is this my dad? And how can you ensure me that this is him?' " said Kenneth Ordenstein, spokesman for the Hawaii Funeral Directors Association.

And nowhere, industry observers said, are people more concerned than in Hawai'i. Not only are 60 percent of the state's dead cremated — the nation's highest rate, according to the Cremation Association of North America — but cremation is almost totally unregulated under state law.

Concern for the lack of cremation rules has led to a push for tighter laws. The industry is calling for licensing and registration of crematoriums, and for clear definitions of consumers' right to authorize and watch cremations. The state legislature is pushing for a funeral industry task force that would likely focus on cremation.

Most Hawai'i crematorium operators must apply for a federally mandated clean air permit, which gets renewed once every five years, but there are no licensing or inspection requirements to make sure a crematorium works properly.

Three crematories that were in operation before 1972, when the federal Clean Air Act went into effect, aren't even required to get a clean-air permit, according to the state Department of Health. So they are not required to pass any state inspections.

Hawai'i is one of only eight states in the country without crematory licensing or inspection regulations, according to the National Funeral Directors' Association. Hawai'i is on a list of states targeted by that association as needing dramatic improvements in crematory licensing laws to protect consumers.

"If you have a law, then at the very least you have a baseline that a crematory would have to meet," said David Walkinshaw, a third-generation funeral home owner in Arlington, Mass., who serves as a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association.

Advocates of stronger cremation laws want several things: Registration, licensing and inspection of cremation equipment; a code of conduct for crematory operators; and rules defining who can authorize a cremation.

The Hawaii Funeral Directors Association has drafted a proposed "model cremation law." The bill, which the association wants introduced soon for deliberation, proposes strict rules for crematory record-keeping, identification of remains and authorization of cremation.

A grisly repeat of the Georgia scandal would probably not be feasible here, said Mitchell Dodo, vice president of Dodo Mortuary and president of the Hawai'i Funeral Directors Association. Hawai'i funeral homes oversee the transport of bodies to the crematories, but in Noble, the crematory operator picked up the bodies from the funeral homes, giving him ample time to illegally dispose of the bodies.

Most state funeral homes also try to be as open as possible, Ordenstein said.

"The major thing is, seeing is believing," he said. "Most of us let you see your dad in the container he's going to be cremated in; you can follow the container to the chamber and can push the button to start the cremation. That's the basic level of comfort we try to provide."

Still, routine inspection of crematories — and not just for air quality, but for proper functioning and body identification procedures — would help keep the companies focused on the consumer, Walkinshaw said.

Who would license and inspect crematories in Hawai'i is unclear. The state Department of Health performs the clean-air inspections, but department director Bruce Anderson said his department is only interested in preventing air pollution, not whether the cremation chambers work right.

"Our laws are adequate to protect public health, but they're not designed to protect consumers against fraud," Anderson said.

Anderson also said crematories probably don't need tighter regulations because the chances of a major scandal are remote.

Hansen disagreed, saying Hawai'i laws aren't too far removed from those in Georgia that allowed Tri-State to go virtually unregulated.

"Could something like that happen here? Absolutely," he said.

A minor relaxation in funeral homes' cadaver-transporting rules, combined with an ill-timed crematory breakdown, is all it would take to set up a bad situation, he said.

The state's rules regarding the right to authorize a cremation are also vague. Hawai'i law fails to define how a relative's or friend's "power of attorney," or legal right to dispose of a deceased person's possessions, translates into the power to choose cremation over burial. In other words, it's unclear who can say "yes" or "no" to a cremation — does the wife or husband have the ultimate say, or is it the children? Does a second spouse have precedence over a first spouse's children?

Mortuaries and crematories have been forced to improvise, said Kevin Kallet Paterson, owner of Ultimate Cremation Services, the state's only independent crematory.

"Most of the mortuaries request all the legal next-of-kin to sign off on the cremation, which can sometimes be very difficult for families to do," Paterson said. "It's very easy for a mortuary to be sued if they do not get all the legal next-of-kin to sign; that's been successfully done on the Mainland at times. So not only does the family have a little more work to do, for us it's a huge liability."

The regulatory gap could expose relatives to acrimonious internal disputes and leave funeral homes and crematories vulnerable to lawsuits, said Jack Springer, executive director of the Cremation Association of North America.

While such laws in many states are vague, Hawai'i is virtually alone in not attempting to specifically define those rights, Springer said.

"Most states have something," Springer said. "Hawai'i is the first state I've heard of that doesn't have a right-to-authorize set up."

This was the second in a two-part series on increased scrutiny in Hawai'i's funeral industry.