East County planning group wants to tap brakes on a Muslim cemetery in remote Pine Valley

It's a tale as old as the American West: folks fighting over water.

This time, however, the battle brewing in a remote California community is one you've likely never heard before.

The clash is centered in the normally sleepy community of Pine Valley, which, according to most recent U.S. Census Bureau figures, has a population of 1,645. Although you don't have to live in town to sign, that figure is close to how many people signed a petition boasting 1,800 signatures that was circulated to Stop SD Crescentwood Cemetery.

The proposed Muslim cemetery, which its nonprofit board had hoped to have operational by the end of 2024, would be nestled on 37 untouched acres between Interstate 8 and Old Highway 80.

It's a beautiful spot, with serene mountain vistas off to the southeast, and wild brush and red-shank chaparral speckled across the crusty, sandy soil. Critics argue, though, that it sits above the Campo-Cottonwood Sole Source Aquifer, which serves the groundwater needs of thousands of East County residents. Depending upon whom you talk with, the facility could host as few as four burials a year or as many as 350.

The problem with locating the cemetery there, though, argue some local residents and the voting members of the Campo/Lake Morena Community Planning Group, is that "effluvium" from decomposing human bodies could leach into the ground, eventually making its way down and contaminating the aquifer.

Some of the locals' concerns arise due to typical Muslim burial practices, in which the body is buried in a shroud, not a casket, and has not been embalmed. The board of the Crescentwood Cemetery Group, however, has reportedly said it has some flexibility in adhering to those typical customs.

THE PLAN FOR SD CRESCENTWOOD CEMETERY

Currently, there are no cemeteries in Pine Valley. An employee at East County Mortuary & Cremation Services said she believed the Alpine Cemetery on Victoria Drive would be the nearest place to bury a body.

The official beginning of the Pine Valley project was back in August 2021, when an application was filed by Crescentwood Cemetery and Mortuary (plans for an on-site mortuary have since been suspended; all funeral preparations would now take place off-site), and, the following February, the land purchase of the property in the 35200 block of Old Highway, out near the La Posta Indian Reservation and Golden Acorn Casino, was complete.

According to a timeline posted on the cemetery's website, the board was formed that same month, an engineering company was hired in July 2022, and, by March of the following year, the organization had filed for a Major Use Permit (MUP) with San Diego County in hopes of having it approved by September of this year and making grave sites available by year's end.

During that time, an access driveway was scraped on the site, clearing brush and chaparral from the lane, and a 1,000-foot deep well capable of discharging 15 gallons of groundwater a minute was drilled.

According to a statement on the proposed cemetery's "About" page, "SD Crescentwood Services (SDCWS) is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization working to serve the burial needs of the Muslim community in the San Diego area. We are an independent organization and not associated to any mosque or any other religious institution. Our mission is to provide affordable and sustainable burial services to the Muslim communities of Southern California. Our goal is to have a large cost-friendly cemetery to satisfy the needs of our community for the years to come."

The website describes Pine Valley as "an ideal location" 57 miles from the Islamic Center of San Diego, in Clairemont Mesa East, and 62 miles from the Muslim Community Center of Greater San Diego, in central San Diego north of Torrey Highlands.

If the project is approved by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and built as envisioned by its creators, it would be surrounded by chain-link fence on three sides, with a tubular-steel fence along Old Highway 80, and would feature 40 parking spots, including two for buses; five separate burial areas; a gazebo; a walking path with a central roundabout; a monument sign; a water storage tank; a 500-square-foot storage building; and not much else, other than a large open-space easement on the cemetery's far side.

At one point, Crescentwood also had plans for Port-a-Potties on-site but the county, in a preliminary response to their MUP, which is called a scoping letter, said Crescentwood would need to have restrooms on-site as well as associated on-site sewage treatment.

It's not clear — despite the allegation that the local planning group makes that there would be 350 burials a year — how many bodies would be buried annually or ever at the site; the Crescentwood website says that 350 graves are needed a year. It does not say that is how many burials would be conducted. The MUP, though, says "it is anticipated that there will be approximately four burials per month."

SDCWS said grave sites would be offered free to people "as it is a service to the Muslim community," though there are costs connected to funerals, including $250 for administrative costs and another $250 for a county fee, as well as $1,000 for transportation and "approximately $3,500" to bury the body, and to provide a grave marker and concrete box and slab.

The MUP filed by Crescentwood states that 15 of the 37 acres that make up the site would be for the actual cemetery, with 15 acres set aside for open space and six or so other acres for stormwater basins and buffers. It also says that the grading will be "site balanced," with 21,000 cubic yards of cut and fill utilized. So, the developers would scrape the site where necessary, and use the leftover soil to fill in spots elsewhere, with the "removal of high and low points to create rolling topography suitable for burial." Brush clearing would take place an acre at a time or as needed for burial to minimize erosion.

THE CAMPO/LAKE MORENA PLANNING GROUP (CLMPG)

In April 2023, the planning group, which typically meets once a month in Campo at the Mountain Empire Community Center, first took up the topic of the Crescentwood Cemetery, mostly to discuss what was known about the project. The CLMPG's chair, Billie Jo Jannen, had reached out to "planners, proponents and neighbors" in anticipation of a meeting in May, with plans at that meeting to have applicants and a county planner in attendance to make a full presentation, followed by a discussion and vote, "if appropriate," as the agenda for the meeting phrased it.

From the minutes of the meeting, it appears that things kicked off with Jannen sharing her research regarding regulations about the siting of cemeteries, of which, she said, there were virtually none. Next, she mentioned that her online research had uncovered a Phase II was planned for the site, which was not part of the Crescentwood application and that Jensen thought should be. After she spoke, there was a mention of the fact that Muslim burial customs don't include embalming.

Soon, a woman named Amanda Sadler, who the minutes describe as a "neighbor to the project," spoke. From the minutes: "Her first degree was at UCSD in neuroscience. What is published today is very new regarding cemeteries. They are a huge source of pollution. Internal implants (such as joint replacement) and residues of medical treatments (such as chemo and prescriptions) can also cause problems in our watershed. The organisms inside the body leak out into the fine sand [and] into the claylike material, which is the best breeding ground for E. coli, streptococcus, tuberculosis."

Sadler was followed by Richard Blaisdell, who the minutes say has been a resident for 35 years. He stated that there was no alternative water source for the community.

And just that quickly, the objections to the Crescentwood cemetery came into focus. But the CLMPG doesn't have the last word.

As San Diego County's Land Use & Environment Group communications officer Donna Durckel pointed out to NBC 7 in an email on May 2, "local planning groups are advisory in nature, [but] most land-use decisions are made by the board of supervisors or planning commission. The decision on this Major Use Permit project is a decision of the county planning commission, which is appealable to the board of supervisors."

That said, in the county's reply to the MUP (the "scoping letter"), it repeatedly urged the Crescentwood organizers to work with the CLMPG on its project and that "a recommendation from the CPG is required prior to hearing."

The most significant concern the planning group has is that the cemetery would be, if not directly above the Campo/Cottonwood Creek Aquifer, close enough for any fluids from the decomposing bodies to leach into the so-called sole-source aquifer for a region providing groundwater for tens of thousands of East County residents.

Although the MUP states that "future facilities are planned for the site and are not part of this action and may be implemented under a separate permit as required by the county of San Diego," Crescentwood's project manager told the planning group and community back in May of last year that the “initial consultation did have other components and there are now no other phases. They had dreams of a big facility but they do not have the money or the wherewithal to do it. This is what they need, they are in dire need of burial space.”

The main objection, though, that neighbors and planning group members keep circling back to is groundwater contamination. In that petition with 1,800 signatures, a concern is raised that "leachate can contaminate drinking water by seeping into the ground and entering the aquifer. This can happen through cracks in the cemetery's liner, or through the natural breakdown of the liner over time. Byproducts including bacteria, viruses, parasites, lead, arsenic, and mercury." At one planning group meeting, officials did ask whether medical devices like pacemakers would be left in bodies interred at the cemetery, and a Crescentwood said there were no plans to remove such devices, according to the minutes.

WHAT DO THE EXPERTS SAY?

Elias Divino Saba, who holds a doctorate of chemistry in Brazil, published a paper last year evaluating the impacts of a cemetery on groundwater. On Friday, he told NBC 7 through his son, who was acting as an interpreter, that he studied a situation in Brasilia in which allegations were made that a cemetery had polluted the groundwater, sickening people. As part of his study, he took samples every three months for 11 years, from 2007-18, and determined that any biological pollutants had degraded by the time they leached 1.5 meters into the ground, with soil filtration and time eliminating the danger of groundwater contamination.

As part of his research, Saba has studied the impacts in both basaltic and lateritic soil, he said, not in sandy soil, which is present in Pine Valley, which he thought would require a greater depth of filtration to eliminate biohazardous contamination. He did not provide an estimate of how deep any leachate would have to go before it was rendered harmless.

A report in the Journal of Water and Health from 2015 reviewed "the results of investigations related to the impact of cemeteries on groundwater bacteriology and virology.

While every cemetery site would need to be assessed individually, the report's introduction begins by stating that cemeteries "are among the chief anthropogenic sources of pollution and contamination of water in urban areas and beyond them."

Pine Valley, of course, is far from any urban area but does draw its water from the aquifer running below it.

In the conclusions section of the report — which examined studies in Europe, South America, Africa and Australia, but not North America — it states that "in a moderate climate condition, a relatively low impact of cemeteries on groundwater pollution by bacteria and viruses was observed. Higher numbers of bacteria are primarily associated with long-lasting rainfall periods."

The report's authors also found that "Brazilian researchers are of the opinion that this negative impact could be contained through proper burial site management and the correct placement of cemeteries." Also, in seeming agreement with Saba, the report said that the research showed that many "reviewed studies revealed some kind of regularity, namely, the more shallow the groundwater table, the more bacteria occur in the water.

Among the report's recommendations,:

• Cemeteries should be located on bedrocks where ... the clay mineral content ranges between 20 and 40%; the bottom of the grave is at least 1.5 m above the maximum groundwater level
• Cemeteries should not be located in areas where ... the groundwater level is shallow … the substrate is very permeable (e.g., sands and gravels, fractured rocks, karst structures)
• The groundwater in cemeteries should be monitored both in terms of biological contamination and the depth of its table level
• People responsible for management processes in a cemetery should … establish recommendations for preparation of interments; those should focus on: construction of coffins, the manner of preparing corpses (including embalming), conservation of coffins, clothing items placed in coffins

CRESCENTWOOD COMMUNITY GROUP

How the bodies would be interred, of course, is a subject that all parties are interested in. According to the minutes from the CLMPG's meeting last June, Crescentwood project manager Steve Wragg said that "burial is in a concrete casting with an open bottom so the body can integrate with the ground." It has been reported elsewhere, though, that the bodies would be encased in cement. NBC 7 asked Naser "Nick" Alemaddin, a representative for Crescentwood, if the bodies would be enclosed in cement, but he declined to answer specific questions and, instead, provided the following statement:

"The Crescentwood Community Group has followed all county and state protocols for the cemetery project. They have contracted with professional engineers and land surveyors to ensure that all environmental and logistical requirements are being met. The proposed construction has been monitored closely to ensure the requirement for advanced hydrology studies has been complied with by Crescentwood. Any further requirements the county lays on will be met with due diligence and competence. Crescentwood has made an adequate attempt to mitigate all community concerns. At this time any member of Crescentwood are unable to make any further statements."

Back in May 2023, though, at the CLMPG meeting, Crescentwood's board members were still speaking about the project, as was CLMPG board member Wellman Sriamorn, who pointed out that when a horse or cattle dies, locals who don't pick up a phone and call a veterinarian to come out and retrieve the body are subject to fines, a distinction not lost on the planning group.

The ordinance Sriamorn seems to be citing is Sec. 62.803, which prohibits depositing or keeping dead animals on private property. While it appears that there are exceptions to that rule, specifically that "every part is covered by at least three feet of soil and the burial location is at least one hundred feet from any well, spring, stream or other surface water, not in a low-lying area subject to seasonal flooding," it's also required that any dead bodies "not likely to contaminate groundwater."

In the county's scoping letter response to Crescentwood's Major Use Permit, the county almost immediately "strongly recommends" coordinating with the CLMPG, since it will "consider comments … in its decision-making process," then shoots down the Port-a-Potty plan and requires the submission of a host of documents, including a Revised Plot Plan, a Revised Biological Resource Report and, perhaps most significantly, a Groundwater Investigation and a Hydrology & Water Quality Report. It also states as a goal that the project ensure "that proposed new developments conduct thorough tests to ensure that the groundwater will not be overdrafted or contaminated for present or future generations."

The following is also required of Crescentwood:

• A technical Memorandum shall be prepared by a California Professional Geologist to evaluate the risk of necroleachate impacting groundwater resources
• A water loading study that looks at the cumulative load at buildout of the cemetery, using a mass balance method, to determine whether the load from the project has the potential to cause the concentration of in-ground water to exceed applicable groundwater quality objectives/primary drinking water standards
• Using soil type, lithology type, rock type (secondary porosity of fractures), depth to groundwater, flow mechanism, and distance to sensitive receptors (production wells, surface water bodies), evaluate the relative risk of necroleachate impacting groundwater resources. The risk of being sited atop of a fractured rock aquifer should be taken into consideration given the potential for fractures to transport contaminants

Crescentwood's project manager, Wragg, said at the June meeting that a study should be conducted at the project site to determine the possibility of groundwater contamination.

Another issue the Crescentwood board will have to address, according to the scoping letter, is how many burials per month are expected, since "the number of 4/month and 350/year are in conflict."

And, finally, the letter states "this property is located within the Campo/Lake Morena Community Planning Group (CPG) boundaries. A recommendation from the CPG is required prior to hearing." That said, Durckel, with the county's Land Use & Environment Group, said planning groups are "advisory in nature" and their approval is not necessarily required for a project to move forward.

In an attachment to the Scoping Letter, the Campo Lake Morena Planning Group laid out its concerns to the county, starting off with its belief that the MUP application was incomplete. The planning group also raised what it felt is inequal treatment between livestock and human remains: "County staff are being quite lenient with a project that involves many more tons of potential effluent than a single dead horse."

Officials then made their most comprehensive objection to the potential groundwater contamination:

"Cemeteries in general are risky over groundwater, and nothing we have seen indicates that the local groundwater would be immune to the effects of pollution from 350 decomposing bodies per year. No local studies have been carried out on the effects of cemetery effluent on local groundwater. In addition to testing the speed at which foreign materials move into groundwater and out to neighboring wells, the proponents should be required to provide full testing of groundwater quality under local cemeteries to learn what bacteria, chemicals and heavy metals can be expected to appear."

FOR NOW, A STALEMATE

The planning group sent the county a letter — approved by a unanimous 6-0 vote — on March 4, 2024, pleading for more regulations regarding siting cemeteries in groundwater-dependent communities. The CLMPG also said it was not singling out Crescentwood's cemetery: "Looking ahead, however, it seems likely that this is only the first such proposal that the rural planning areas will see. As cemetery space dwindles in the urban graveyards, and land in and around cities goes up in price, our rural lands will look far more attractive than sites near the point of need."

For their part, the Crescentwood group disagrees regarding groundwater concerns. At the May 2023 meeting, according to the planning group's minutes, a Crescentwood board member named Karem, presumably Karem Elhams, a self-identified engineer listed on the Crescentwood "About" Page who the minutes described as a civil engineer, explained how aquifers work and pointed out that wildlife dies all over the area and said that "no reliable studies … have been published regarding cemeteries and groundwater contamination." The minutes go on to say that "Karem respectfully disagrees that the cemetery will contaminate the groundwater, saying that it [would] take thousands of years for effluent to go through solid rock."

Speaking to NBC 7 in April, though, Jannen strongly disagreed with Elhams.

"We have what is called a fractured bedrock groundwater system," Jannen said. "We have rock. Lots and lots of it. But it's all broken up in cracks and crevices. When it rains, water flows into those cracks and crevices, and that's what we survive on most of the year. It doesn't take a thousand years. If it took a thousand years, there would be no groundwater in the backcountry."

In a follow-up email with Jannen, she wrote that encasing the buried bodies in cement would not satisfy her concerns regarding groundwater contamination, and added a new, seismic element: "First, cement is a porous material — more porous than most rock — and can even dissolve in water over time, especially if they use bagged cement. Second, cement is also more prone to cracking than rock is — even faster if they don't use rebar — so imagine how that would work on land that experiences geological upsets capable of cracking the local bedrock."

For his part, Saba, the Brazilian researcher, said that the effluvium from decomposing bodies tends to be acidic, which would corrode cement.

Jannen was not the only planning group member with concerns about Crescentwood. Cory Gautereaux told those in attendance, according to the minutes, that “I guess my concern for the community here, besides the water, is that this project was started by misleading the community … [by] not providing accurate information regarding the project … No one is any different in this room. We are all the same. Everyone wants the same thing. I would like to support you because of your religion and your burial processes, and I believe you have the same rights as everyone else. It is very important to your culture and you have explained that. Although your constituents have misled a lot of people in this community and they have felt misled. So, what are you going to do to change that?”

An unidentified member of the Crescentwood contingent was quoted as saying at the meeting, "Going forward we are going to have everything right out on the table, no hidden agenda or anything like that.”

Alemaddin of the Crescentwood board explained that he didn't want to conduct an interview with NBC 7 for this story after there was "a lot of pushback from the community and they don't want to escalate things," and that they were concerned about stoking controversy.

CRESCENTWOOD'S NEXT STEPS

At this point, the county is waiting on various studies, including the Groundwater Investigation and the Hydrology & Water Quality Report, from the Crescentwood Group and, upon their receipt, will evaluate the impacts of the project on the environment and decide whether any mitigation will be required.

A handful of children were on the playground during a recent visit to Pine Valley County Park, about 15 miles away from the cemetery, with the sun shining overhead and birds singing in the nearby trees. A few parents, including local Alan Klos, who's lived in Pine Valley for seven years, sat on a short retaining wall nearby keeping watch. NBC 7 spoke with a handful of Pine Valley residents that morning, about half of whom, Klos among them, were aware of the cemetery and the controversy surrounding it.

"I mean, it's not ideal but, unfortunately, those who have departed, they do need a place to be buried, and I really can't think of a whole lot of more beautiful areas than out here," Klos said. "As long as they're careful, I don't really see a problem with it."

Klos, a large bearded fellow with a friendly demeanor who has spent years working in the security industry, went on to explain what he meant by "careful": "Making sure that those who have been interred aren't polluting the groundwater. You know, it's not causing any sort of environmental issues or potentially affecting the safety of the families who live here in Pine Valley and in the area."

You'll get no argument from Jannen about the fact that the cemetery could be opened on the site under the current county permitting processes and that there are few in the way of the cemetery's creation.

"Other than common sense, no," Jannen said in the April email to NBC 7.

However, Jannen said, she was hopeful after the county required a deeper dive on the groundwater issue in its scoping letter.

"Right now, they are doing various studies that are required," Jannen said. "I will give the county credit. They did pay attention to our initial comments on the scoping [letter]."

Originally, Crescentwood's organizers had hopes for the cemetery to open by year's end, but it seems likely that another year or so will pass before the county will render a decision.

The county's Land Use & Environment Group communications officer, Donna Durckel, echoed that theory.

"A public hearing on the project is probably still a year from now, depending on when the applicant provides the required information requested," said Durckel in the statement sent to NBC 7 on May 1, also saying that the "project is fairly early in the county process and there will be more opportunities for the community and public to provide feedback on the project, including a public review period and public hearing."

The next meeting of the Campo Lake Morena Planning group is scheduled for May 27 at 7 p.m., according to Jannen.