website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nFamilies can either collect the soil in person at one of Earth Funeral\u2019s facilities or have it mailed through the United States Postal Service.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we\u2019re watching: Bredefeld and Madera County Supervisor Jordan Wamhoff said they both plan to propose legislation in their respective counties to prohibit using human compost on public land.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What they\u2019re saying: \u201cThe stupidity and the lack of common sense is breathtaking,\u201d Bredefeld said. \u201cThis public land is culturally significant and environmentally sensitive. People currently use this land to pick fruit from trees, and there are daily wine tasting events there. I personally, along with my colleagues, will not allow this insanity to be hidden from the public. They have every right to know this is how their tax dollars are being misused.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conservancy Chairwoman Kacey Austom-Tibbetts, Fresno City Councilman and Conservancy board member Nick Richardson and Wamhoff joined Bredefeld at Thursday\u2019s press conference, which was held at the Fresno County Hall of Records. They discussed the need to make this information public.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about decision making and transparency in a nutshell,\u201d Wamhoff said. \u201cDo we have all of the information? No, but we do know that there is composted human material that is being disked into the ground near or at Sumner Peck Ranch.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wamhoff added, \u201cIt is something that I would want to know as a parent, that when I go to pick some fruit at some type of event, I would want to know if they are disking decomposed human bodies into the soil. I would want to know that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bredefeld added, \u201cI\u2019m not an expert in this field, but this is human remains. This is not about ash and being cremated. This is human remains being turned into compost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Richardson said he toured the ranch, noting that the strip of composting land that he saw was around 50 to 60 feet long, around three feet high and around three to four feet in width. Richardson also touched the compost, not having been told what it was. \u201cI know what it feels like,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cUnfortunately, I touched it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Auston-Tibbetts called for the Trust to collaborate with the conservancy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have failed to collaborate,\u201d Auston-Tibbetts said. \u201cIf we had known about this prior, we would never ever have agreed to this. And the fact, as my colleagues said on the board, is that they haven\u2019t come forward and they weren\u2019t fully transparent with us shows that they know in their gut that it was the wrong thing to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tribal response: The Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians released a statement on Thursday excoriating the use of human compost on Yokut ancestral lands along the San Joaquin River.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tribal Council of the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians strongly condemns the reported distribution of\u00a0composted human remains\u00a0on lands along the San Joaquin River that are part of the ancestral homeland of the Yokuts people and calls for an immediate halt to these activities,\u201d the tribe said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor countless generations, these lands have held deep cultural, spiritual, and historical significance for the Native peoples of this region,\u201d the tribe said. \u201cThe treatment of human remains is among the most sacred responsibilities in our traditions. The idea that\u00a0composted human remains would be distributed across these lands\u00a0where our ancestors lived, prayed, and were laid to rest there is deeply troubling and profoundly disrespectful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tribe urged the Trust to immediately cease using human compost, saying, \u201cProtecting the dignity of the deceased and preserving the cultural integrity of ancestral lands is not optional. It is a responsibility we all share.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fresno and Madera leaders are calling on the San Joaquin River Parkway Trust to stop spreading human compost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-207761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}