Grave Concerns

The Columbian (Vancouver, WA.)
April 19, 1995, Wednesday

GRAVE CONCERNS

BYLINE: By BRETT OPPEGAARD The Columbian
SECTION: A section; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 960 words

    CAMAS -- Instead of giving unwanted headstones a proper burial, Camas Cemetery caretakers have spent decades dumping intact markers and garbage off a nearby cliff.
    The affronting debris tumbled to its resting place on city property less than 100 feet from the manicured trail that runs parallel to Lacamas Creek.
    "If somebody found their grandmother's stone (in the brush), they might find it offensive," said Bruce Fuerstenberg, owner of Vancouver Granite Works and provider of most of the local gravestones. "I find it disrespectful."
    Camas Cemetery, established in 1885 and managed by the non-profit Camas Cemetery Association, is the final resting place for hundreds of the town's dead.
    Keith Wilbur, a Washougal resident who last month stumbled upon the tangle of upturned headstones and trash at the bottom of the cliff, called it revolting when he notified The Columbian.
    Even the chairwoman of the cemetery association found it appalling.
    "I wouldn't be too happy if I saw my family down there," Arlene Matson, the chairwoman, said. "I didn't even know it had happened." Inquiries last week by the newspaper prompted quick city action.
    Hustling city officials plan to send a work crew Thursday to clean up the mess. While the dumping is a criminal misdemeanor, charges for littering likely would not be filed, police said. Both departments have known about the site for years.
    The dumping stopped within the past five years, but it will cost about $ 1,400 for the projected two days of cleanup, said Rod Laddusaw, a Camas park supervisor.
    Since the cemetery association can't afford it, the city will pick up the trash and the bill, he said.
    "Who knows how many years that has piled up?" said Monte Brachmann, a spokesman for Camas Public Works.
Indifference toward the dead
    Exploring the woods with his metal detector last month, Keith Wilbur of Washougal wandered off the trail near the potholes on Lacamas Creek. A few feet up the bank he was confronted with a huge headstone lodged against a tree. He could read clearly the inscription:
    "William Hintz Private 42nd Co. World War I Jan. 10, 1890 - May 16, 1958."
    It didn't take him long to find another. Then another.
    "They are all over the place," he said. He found more than 15, and dozens more likely will turn up during the city cleanup.
    "I was disgusted," Wilbur added. "I didn't know if it was vandalism or the cemetery was making room for new residents."
    It turned out to be neither.
    Dennis Finck, the cemetery's full-time caretaker, said tossing unwanted headstones off the cliff had been a common practice at Camas Cemetery, even encouraged by previous members of the association board.
    If someone replaced a headstone, or if the stone ordered had a flaw in it, down it went, Finck said.
    "The cemetery had been doing it for years," he said.
    It was cheap and easy, but not exactly respectful, he acknowledged.
    Sgt. Doug Slyter of the Camas police said he remembers headstones being there as long ago as the late 1960s. He said the dumping might be illegal, but he would have to investigate further.
    Sgt. Paul Pearce said he had known about the site for more than 10 years and considered it a matter better left to someone else.
    "Explain to me how this is a police issue," he said. "The Columbian's the only one making this an issue."
    Finck said his predecessors had always used the area as a dumping ground. He stopped in 1990 when a patron asked him what he was going to do with an old tombstone.
    "When I told him, he didn't think it was a good idea," Finck said. "I didn't think it was a good idea either. So now I bust them up so you can't hardly read the names at all."
    Finck said he has stopped throwing the headstones over the bank. Instead, he tosses over grass clippings, branches and other biodegradable items such as flowers and wreaths.
    He said he uses the crushed headstones to fill in low spots on the cemetery's grounds.
    "It hasn't happened in the past few years," said chairwoman Matson. "It certainly won't happen anymore."
    The cemetery also has problems with vandals, Finck said. People desecrate the grounds almost monthly. They kick over markers and throw garbage cans over the edge.
    It doesn't help that the area, until the early 1970s, was the Camas garbage dump and until the late 1970s was a depository for the bodies of dogs killed at the city pound.
    Finck still catches people throwing junk off the cliff, he said.
Fixing the problem
    Properly disposing of unwanted tombstones is an issue most headstone companies face.
    "Every now and then an intact marker pops up," said Fuerstenberg of Vancouver Granite Works. "I've heard of them surfacing in landfills before, but we try to make sure they don't get resurrected."
    Bob McKechnie, manager of Park Hill Cemetery, said, "We don't think it's very cool when it happens (an intact headstone is found outside a cemetery)."
    Both say the practice common today is to break markers up into sand, or at least so they are unreadable.
    Fuerstenberg said it costs his company $ 6 a truckload to get rid of headstones at a stone recycling plant in Portland.
    "Nobody likes to see old stones lying around," he said.
    That is especially true on city property, said Brachmann of Public Works.
    Brachmann arranged for the site to be picked up by a work crew of Clark County offenders.
    "It's a beautiful area back there," Laddusaw said. "It really ought to be cleaned up."
    Finck, a work crew of about 10 and Laddusaw will begin at 9 a.m. Thursday and work each following Thursday until the project is completed, Brachmann said.
    "We aren't going to go after the cemetery," Brachmann said. "Our main goal is to get the stuff cleaned up."