Wayland Board of Health approves Orchard Lane green burial, sends application to DEP

WAYLAND — August 12, 2024 — Wayland Board of Health unanimously approves green home burial at 56 Orchard Lane, pending town meeting. The 4-0 vote clears the local public-health review for the family of World Bank climate scientist Pablo Suarez, who died unexpectedly, but KP Law has advised that older case law requires a town meeting vote for any private burial outside an established cemetery. Engineer Marcia Berger told the board soils were tested to roughly seven feet on a glacial esker, with wetlands more than 100 feet away; she said bacterial spread in dry soil is highly localized because the microbes are "homebodies." Suarez will be interred temporarily at the town cemetery. Chair Robert Defrancesco also disclosed he is resigning and moving out of town. Staff reported North Pond at Lake Cochituate is closed after microcystin hit 7.5, just under the state threshold of 8, and that a Framingham pipe break dumped about 675,000 gallons of raw sewage into the Sudbury River.