Frisco residents are upset about a crematorium near their homes. City officials say the fight is being fought with the wrong opponent

When a local group of homeowners came to Frisco City Hall to demand a halt to the construction of a new crematorium near their neighborhood, city officials were quick to tell her that she was barking up the wrong tree because the construction was not the city's responsibility.

The group expressed concern about "continued exposure to hazardous chemicals, carcinogens, neurotoxins, fumes, black smoke from cremated human remains and other toxic contaminants" from the facility and created a petition that garnered more than 750 signatures by noon of the meeting, Nov. 21. The petition says the city "quietly" agreed to the deal.

"Frisco residents are just now learning and are outraged that a CREMATORY is being built in a residential neighborhood in Frisco," the petition reads.

City officials presented residents with a timeline that they believe should clarify the situation.

"We've gotten some emails saying, 'Well, the neighborhood was here first, it's kind of a Trump thing,' but in fact the crematorium was approved before the neighborhood was even considered and before any development began," Frisco Mayor Jeff Chaney said. "All of this information has been posted on the city's website since the approval."

But Andrew Bird, president of the HOA from the nearby Frisco Springs neighborhood where many of the group's members live, told the council that knowledge of the timeline does not negate the damage he said the crematorium would cause.

According to Byrd, a few weeks before the meeting, a resident noticed "some massive gas lines" running to what they mistook for a funeral home. With a little research, residents learned of the crematorium, so a petition was created.

"What they don't talk about is the fact that 80 percent of people who are cremated have mercury in their mouths, and that mercury gets burned and goes up in the air," Bird says. "When it comes to regulating this area, a black hole forms, meaning it's completely unregulated."

Availability of zoning permits

Jonathan Hubbard, Assistant Director of Development Services, said a development plan was adopted for the site in 2014 that authorized construction of a crematory. In October 2015, a site plan was approved for the crematory, which is owned by Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home and is being built at Ridgeview West Memorial Park, 7800 Sanctuary Drive.

Hubbard said in 2018, changes to the road network led to the adoption of a new development plan, which required notification to nearby residents.

"All properties within 200 feet were notified, and at the time it was the developer of the Frisco Springs neighborhood and the home builders," he said.

Hubbard said the final development plan for the Frisco Springs area was approved in March 2018; the first building permit for Frisco Springs was issued on March 15, 2018, and the first certificate of occupancy for one of the homes was issued on August 24, 2018.

"All zoning approvals for the crematorium were obtained before the Frisco Springs neighborhood began construction," he said.

As for the health risks, Chaney said the property owner provided the city with information about the technology and installation, which he said is a smokeless ventilation system.

Byrd asked why the crematorium was placed in the epicenter of the city, near residential neighborhoods and parks where children play.

"Whether we see black smoke or not, we know these emissions are going up in the air, and we know they are dangerous, and we know they are burning things that are not good for our health and our society," he said.

Bird said with the advent of the crematorium, Frisco will no longer be known as "Play Frisco."

"This place will be known as 'we burn bodies here.' That's what we're telling people. We're burning bodies here and we're going to put stuff in the air," he said. "And now that we realize how dangerous it is to health ... this is something we have to reconsider. We have to consider relocating this crematorium."

State law vs. city ordinance

Frisco City Attorney Richard Abernathy said the city's hands are tied legally and state laws prohibit it from interfering with existing projects.

"The legislation under the Local Government Code, which are laws created and enacted by the state, establishes rights-of-way, zoning and other regulations that allow a landowner to move forward without interference from the city, except for certain exceptions," Abernathy said. "And in this case, I'm not aware of any exceptions that would allow us to do that."

Despite the controversy over whether crematoriums are dangerous, the state organization that controls emissions, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, says they are not.

The TCEQ issued the crematory permit on August 30, 2022.

"The TCEQ precludes the city's right to regulate emissions," Abernathy said. "So the TCEQ will control it."

Victoria Kann, a media relations specialist with the TCEQ, says crematoriums typically emit only small amounts of harmful substances.

"Crematoria are minor sources of air emissions that require an air emissions permit," Kann said in an emailed statement. "Any air emissions permit issued contains specific requirements to ensure that human health and the environment are protected when facilities are operated in compliance with those requirements."

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Terry Turrentine Irby, a partner at Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, told The Dallas Morning News that the facility is state-of-the-art and will release fewer toxins into the environment than a residential fireplace.

"We provide families with assistance with funeral, burial and crematory arrangements, respecting personal and/or religious preferences and privacy. We also actively participate in state and national funeral service associations, maintaining the highest ethical, professional and environmental standards," Irby's said in an emailed statement, "Finally, all of our locations and buildings are permitted through the public process and meet all federal, state and local requirements. Respectfully, we appreciate our neighbors and the communities we serve."

Brian Lawson, a local homeowner, told the Council that the fact that the petition has garnered more than 700 signatures in three days shows that the problem isn't going away. As of Dec. 6, the petition had collected 1,142 signatures.

According to Lawson, if he had known about the crematorium when he bought his home in 2020, he would not have bought it.

"I came to the house I was going to buy, saw the cemetery - very peaceful, very beautiful - no problem with that," Lawson said. "If I was given a choice and told there was going to be a crematorium 50 yards from your house, would I make a different decision? To tell you the truth, I would, I would choose not to buy a house there."

EPA's Shayla Powell explained in a statement to The News that the agency does not regulate crematoriums "because the agency does not consider human bodies to be 'solid waste' under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. EPA has no plans to regulate air emissions from crematoriums."

It further noted in part that in the preamble to the proposed regulations, in addressing the nature of human crematoria, "EPA has determined that the human body should not be labeled or treated as 'solid waste.' Therefore, human crematoriums are not solid waste incineration facilities."

What about the mercury?

Amy Lund, assistant professor of biological sciences and environmental toxicology at the University of North Texas, said crematoriums emit pollutants including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and volatilized mercury from dental amalgam in dental fillings that can harm both the environment and human health if proper emission control measures are not taken.

"The composition of the casket and remains, the design of the combustion chambers and the cremator ' s operating parameters (e.g., temperature, oxygen, etc.) can determine the types of emissions from the crematorium," Lund said in a statement to The News.

Lund, who is director of the Institute for Advanced Environmental Studies at UNT, says that while there is no data in the literature on crematorium emissions in the U.S., very few pollutants are likely to be released into the environment if abatement equipment, scrubbers or other chimney treatments are available.

"However, this depends on the type of technology used by the crematorium to reduce emissions, as well as proper maintenance of the crematorium," she said.

According to Lund, while all chemicals and compounds emitted from crematoria have potentially negative effects on human health, if proper technology is maintained and utilized, emissions of many of them can be reduced by 70-99%.

"Given that these same chemicals are also emitted from industrial and automobile exhaust, it is impossible to determine the environmental and human health impacts of crematoria compared to other sources of these pollutants in a particular geographic location. However, crematoria are generally considered low emission sources of these pollutants," she said. "As a toxicologist specializing in air pollution, I can say with certainty that a significant portion of these air pollutants come from sources caused by traffic in the DFW area."

Lawson says the city is at fault, in part because it should not have allowed a housing development to be built so close to where the crematorium was planned.

"It's a great place to live. I feel like I picked a great city. We have great city management, but it was a slip-up," he said.

According to Lawson, the most disturbing thing about all of this is that no one was given a choice or opportunity to know what was going to happen in the neighborhood.

"The builders didn't tell us anything. If the builder knew, he certainly didn't tell anyone and that's a problem," he said. "It's also going to be a problem from a legal point of view, and I would prefer that we find another way out of this situation, because one way or another the costs are not going to be high."