Board of Health takes up rare home green burial request

WAYLAND — July 15, 2024 — Wayland Board of Health takes up rare home green burial petition. Members Genevieve Anand, Jonathan Storer and Brett Mordas agreed at Monday's meeting to research a request from the family of recently deceased resident Pablo Suarez, whose relatives want to bury him on his own property under state law allowing green burials with local Board of Health approval. Family member Janelle Mendler de Suarez wrote that the family wanted his resting place to be "at home that he loved." The board also received an engineering report on the former Raytheon parcel where the new Council on Aging is being built, with licensed site professional Ben Gould of CMG Environmental reporting PFAS, petroleum and PCBs in a buried collection tank and surrounding soil stockpiles bound for off-site disposal, possibly in Maine. Staff also flagged a regional 15-case cluster of cyclospora, a produce-borne parasite under state investigation.