 We are back Friday afternoon, just at 2 o'clock and we're here on H244, which is about our bill on the natural organic reduction. And Katie's here. Katie spent some time talking to OPR and others perhaps, but I did want to welcome Carolyn. Maze is here. Carolyn, are you still there? I am. Hello. Thank you. Good to see you. So we, I don't know if you followed the testimony last week at all, but there were a couple questions that came up and it came up. One of them came I think from our friend Chris Polano from the funeral directors, and, and which was specifically to the point where, with, with remains, if a family leaves remains behind, our state law says that the funeral directors have to hold onto them for three years before they can dispose of them differently. And that naturally led to the question, what do you do with a cubic yard of human compost remains if the family, if the family doesn't pick that up? And so we just wanted to, given the limited experience that that's happened with this, with this method of disposition, we wanted to ask you, is that, is that something that you're, you know, is in a contract? Is that something that's in the understanding of, you know, will our funeral directors, you know, if they're unlucky, have a cubic yard of compost so that they have to take care of for three years? Right. That would be a problem, especially because it's a live thing, right? We don't want to be holding that for three years. The intention is for it to be returned to the environment. And so in our contracts, we have it very clearly laid out that any soil that is produced is donated to our restoration projects, and that the family can elect to receive a portion of soil, and that can be anywhere from one to five containers. There are about kind of four by six inches high, 32 fluid ounces, containers worth of soil. And if a family were to not collect those, if they elected to receive those, and they did not collect them within 90 days, that that portion of soil would also then be donated to our restoration projects. And so that's included in our contracts. I would imagine that that most operators would do a similar sort of setup. We could retain a portion or two of soil for a longer period of time because it is essentially the size of an urn, right? So that is much more manageable. And if we were to retain it for more than 90 days, I think we would want to put it through a further sterilization process where we would reduce the moisture content so that it would be more stable over that longer time period. So that's, I think the key thing here is that if I were to come to an organic reduction center, that I am actually signing a contract that includes this proviso in it. And so that is the first step there. I guess I'll just go over to Chris Palermo who's anticipating my question, I'm sure, or has a question or an answer to this question. So Chris. So good afternoon everyone. That's a similar process that we go through when we work with independent crematory. We have a cremation authorization form that we go over with a family stipulating what happens during the cremation process and such. So from a funeral home point of view, we would get a form from the natural organic reduction facility. We would go over that contract with the family. They would sign off on it. So whether the facility itself was serving the family directly or a funeral home was servicing the family coming to that facility. We would come in hand with that contract which would indemnify both the funeral home as well as the facility moving forward. It's good to hear Carolyn speak to that. I think that brings some clarity from both providers point of view as well as the family or the consumer point of view of what happens to this cubic yard or more of compost that remains. So I appreciate that insight. And Chris, while we have you. So what are the circumstances of you receiving remains that the family then never comes back to pick them up? What are those circumstances like for you in terms of you've been contracted to handle the disposition of someone and yet the transaction isn't complete because regardless of whether you've been paid or not, you still have the actions. Right. So I can tell you what I did in my practice and I can tell you that after 41 years when I retired, I had no unclaimed cremator remains in my funeral home. I'm not sure that that's true for every facility in Vermont or nationwide. But I made it clear with families that they needed to actually come and receive the ashes within 30 days of the cremation. And there's no, I mean, there's not a funeral home around that's going to say, well, before you can have your family member back in terms of cremator remains, you need to pay us. My stipulation with the family is that this is your family member. You need to be responsible for them moving forward. So within 30 days, you need to make arrangements to come and pick them up. If not, you would be receiving notice from us where we would actually be sending you the cremator remains to a designated shipping point, whether it's to your home address or to another family member. But ultimately, you need to be responsible and you need to receive these folks. They are your family. And it worked well for me for over four decades, understanding that we're, we don't want to have the liability or long-term responsibility of holding those remains. And then the cases where a funeral director does have the remains, again, we have statute that says abandoned remains must, you know, you have to hold them for what, three years and then find a place to dispose of them. That's correct. And I can tell you, and I can tell you what we do, and this is really more very germane to the office of chief medical examiner. The Vermont funeral director's association on an annual basis receives the unclaimed cremator remains that have been in the OCME's office for over three years from the date of cremation. And we made provisions both at Resurrection Park and South Burlington as well as Oak Hill Cemetery and Bell's Falls to enter those ashes so that they have a final resting place. But if a family member five years down the road comes and reaches out to us and says, you know, I didn't realize my great grandfather died and we would like to have those ashes back. We can make provisions to return those ashes so they're protected in the ground in a burial vault so that they can have them back. But at least for no other reason, we've made those provisions and it gives every funeral home as well as a natural reduction facility, you know, hopefully they don't run into this problem, but the ability to bring final resting place for both cremator remains as well as NOR. So again, because this doesn't yet exist, right, as a form of disposition, I mean it's we're at the point of saying that a contract right now, especially for this, I mean worse, this isn't, this is, I don't want, I guess it's a niche, it's a niche market, you know, it's not going to be for everybody, not everybody's going to choose it and I can make an assumption that if you do choose it, then you're enthusiastic about it and that you're not going to leave your loved one behind. But the question of course, in the worst case scenario as we always do our work is do we, for the committee's, you know, contemplation, do we need to, do we trust that there's going to be a contract between the, you know, the organic reduction center where that's taken care of and leave it at that, you know, and just treat it as if it remains otherwise. That's a question for us to handle. Caroline, another question that I recall from our conversations was the determination and on the handout that you sent us last month, if you have a small print, that there are limitations on people who remains that can be composted and I'm just curious, and that's probably a question that may be set in rules by our Department of Health. How did, how did those, how did those particular words end up on, up on that, your handout? Right, that's taken directly from the Washington State regulations and so I believe they're put in place by the Department of Health here and it seems like something that is common sense that we would, even if it wasn't regulated as such in other states, that we would stick to that stipulation anywhere that we were practicing. Okay, I'll ask your question. I'm sorry I missed the beginning so it may be redundant. I did have a couple of concerns. One, one certainly pertained to the non-collection of, of the remains and I think it's been discussed. I came in in the conversation. I, I do have a concern about, if I myself am very enthusiastic about this and prepay my, my end expenses so that this is how I'm going to be taken care of, have I now obligated my loved one to figure out how to remove a cubic yard of material that weighs potentially 1,000, 1,500 pounds from somewhere and take it somewhere. I'm really unclear on that step of the process and also just the cost in perspective of funeral expenses of, of, of how, not just the process itself but again the cost of claiming the material and, and taking care of it. Do I, you know, can I put it around the tree in my backyard or do I have to have a space that's accepting a cubic yard of material that I know in the bill it speaks to permit disposition, location of the body's permanent disposition and time and manner of its removal. So there is some sense in our statute of recognizing where human remains are. So I just, I really have some real broad questions there. Yeah. So to your, your first point around, if you were to do a pre pre need plan with a, an organization, it would depend on who that provider is. And so just speaking from our organization and how we have approached it, every one of those contracts would assume that the full portion of soil is being donated to restoration projects. And so that cubic yard of soil never becomes an obligation for that family to take care of. The person who's making the plans can elect to receive portions of that, that soil back. And that would be anywhere from one to five 32 fluid ounce sized containers. So it's really much more manageable. And they would be putting in place an address for the person who is what we call the authorized recipient. And so that authorized recipient would receive one to five of these containers. They could also say, I elect to not receive those. And then they would have, they would receive nothing. So it's really quite flexible. The other major providers of NLR in Washington take a similar approach. And so in all of those instances, they have either partnerships or own conservation land where they are working on restoration projects. And so the soil always has a home and a good use. And so that's how it's been handled here. I think your question, you raise an interesting question of, is it, is it fair to assume that other operators would take a similar stance? And I can't really answer for that. But as an operator, we do want to always have that kind of plan in place to make it easy for our consumers. Because I do think that many people will be hesitant to sign up for something where at the end, you would be responsible for a cubic yard of soil. Regarding your other question around uses, in the state of Washington and in Colorado and Oregon, it follows the same sort of clauses for the disposition of cremated remains. So if you were to scatter, for example, on private property, you would need the consent of the property owner. Well, I just, I was curious, when you spoke of the restoration projects, it does bring to mind, again, so often so many of these questions have a, where's the chicken, where's the egg, but, you know, how much land and what would be an example of the restoration project that would potentially be the recipient of a substantial amount of bodies to begin to see a need for this or an ability to make use of this material? Right. So in Washington, the land that has is being used ranges anywhere from five acres to over 750 acres. And the restoration projects are generally, there are some reforestation projects. There's some conservation projects where one of the organizations is working to rehabilitate an area that's a salmon run. And so they're doing a lot of work there. In our instance, it's mostly reforestation. So we have a piece of land that was logged and that has a lot of invasive species that are growing on it now. And so the plan for us would be to remove invasive species and to replant native species there. And we've done our own calculations as to kind of how much land you need, how many acres you need per processes, if you're assuming like a one inch of compost application to three to six inches to integrate into the soil. And so I would presume that others would take a similar sort of approach. Thank you. That really brings to mind for me that I think that there'd be a very natural connection with our agency of natural resources who are looking into many of these things. And that, you know, that needs to be in place before you tell someone the service is available for them. There has to be that end spot. And I appreciate you gave Washington sites. I think we might have similar layer in Vermont, but I have not heard them identified. So thank you. Percent of trial. So is it anticipated that some, or I don't remember thinking that it was mandated, but that some cemeteries will have compost gardens to accommodate remains. Is that anticipated? And how would that work? Again, it wouldn't be mandatory, but it would be suggested, maybe. We've had, I've had conversations with green burial grounds here in the state of Washington where I could see us partnering together at some point. What I think would be really amazing is to have a list of places that a consumer could choose what resonates most with them. And that's where I see this hopefully going is that we can can offer multiple options and have partnerships with green burial grounds and other places so that, or even traditional burial grounds if they were to set aside a certain place for this, if there have had other family members who were buried there, so that you can have sort of this connection across generations. I think there could be a lot of really interesting things that we could develop. Yeah, that sounds great. All right, any further questions for Carolyn right now? I wanted to bring Katie McLean in. Hi, Katie. Hi, nice to see you. Nice to see you too. So we had the questions that we had put before you was to contact, to be in contact with OPR and we had a short conversation yesterday where you've made some connections someplace but we have a couple of questions to answer that you might have questions that you may have for us in terms of policy or direction that we have. But if you could just fill us in first of the conversations, is everything clear with OPR and perhaps the Department of Health for what we need to know on this bill? Sure. So I did have a conversation with OPR and I think one of their concerns was expressed to you as well. And that was having multiple types of licenses. As you remember, the bill is introduced. We sort of were trying to create this parity. So if we were talking about a crematory establishment, then we're also talking about a natural organic reduction facility and having that parity in a new license type. And their proposal was, instead of having these multiple license types, is to instead just use a general term of disposition facility. And that would cover, there'd be a license type, regardless of the mode of disposition that was being practiced to that facility. So it could cover cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, or natural organic reduction as redrafted in the amendment that I put together for you today. So that's a change in the amendment throughout the amendment throughout all three chapters of using this general term disposition facility. So that is sort of the main conversation I had with OPR. And then I did double check with David Englander of the Health Department to confirm that it was the Health Department's plan where this piece of legislation to pass that they would use rulemaking to, for example, carve out a group of people who might have certain conditions or certain diseases as not being eligible for natural organic reduction. And he confirmed with me via email that that is the process they would take where this to pass. Okay. And we had a fund, there was a one, at least one fundamental, and maybe correct me if there's more, but there was the one fundamental issue that came up when you did the first walkthrough of the difference between a cemetery and a burial ground. And and the option for us is to either not address that because it might require quite a bit of testimony in terms of in terms of what the culture is. Can you review that for us? Sure. So if you remember when we first walked through the bill, I was kind of talking about how it was also a cleanup bill of these statutes. And throughout, particularly in Title 18, the words cemetery and burial grounds are used interchangeably most often, there's also a few references to graveyards that seems to be used interchangeably with cemetery and burial ground. So the bill is introduced, attempted to sort of clean that up a bit and select one term. And then, while I was walking through the bill, there were concerns that maybe there was something different meant by burial ground, and that really we needed to pull that apart a little bit before just making a sweeping change. So what the instructions I followed when putting together this amendment that I have for you, I think it's posted on your website, is to really streamline the technical corrections piece. And I tried to take out everything in the bill that wasn't specifically related to natural organic reduction. So all of the sections that make a change from cemetery to natural burial ground, I pulled out of this draft and really focused on allowing for natural organic reduction and using that term disposition facility to cover many modes of disposition. So that's really what you'll see in the bill or in the amendment. And I guess it's worth adding that in doing this, I also pulled out the idea of scattering gardens, thinking that that was maybe outside what the committee wanted to focus on with natural organic reductions. Now, as you are speaking, I sort of heard the concept come back. So I'm not sure how the committee wants that handle. It could be added back in, but for now, in this amendment, it has been pulled out. Well, we took the testimony on scattering grounds that, again, recently just about what made that our local veteran cemetery, we needed an activity permit in order to create one. But I'm not sure that Carolyn's testimony points out that, I mean, there could be a scattering garden anywhere, except for the veteran cemetery. At least that's how I'm reading those rules right now. Representative Clarke in that trial. Thank you, Sharon. And thank you, Katie, for doing all this work. If I understood what you did by kind of narrow casting this, do we still now have a misalignment in other statutes about cemeteries, burial grounds, disposition that you would have to have another bill to clean that up? If you wanted to clean that up, I mean, I suppose you could do it now that I don't know that a decision has been made one way or the other, but this takes that conversation off the table and maintains the status quo in the statutes. But if we pass this amended one we're looking at today, this now is not consistent with other things that you were trying to make consistent. Is that right? No. So basically this bill is amending existing statue. It's really not creating new sections of law. So we're not adding to the existing, we're just maintaining sort of the existing inconsistency, I guess. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Appreciate it. Representative Frano. So Katie, thanks again, yeah, for doing all this work. A disposition, the definition of disposition facility, would that include a traditional enbalming funeral home? The definition in the bill separates that out. So there's well, there's traditional like funeral services and that falls under its own definition and its own license. In Title 26 in this draft has disposition facility just covering cremation, alkaline, hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction as one license. One license for all of those. Correct. Okay. And the other, I remember the bill as you walked us through it had the whole piece about the Veterans Cemetery and that was taken from the bill that we passed two or three years ago, allowing for unclaimed cremated remains to be entered in the Veterans Cemetery. So my question is since apparently Bob Burke has told us that it's not possible to do that without an Act 250 permit, which couldn't take his estimate of six months, we all thought was pretty optimistic, I guess. But so should we remove that section from the bill entirely? Should we remove all the language from the Veterans Cemetery from the bill? Maybe we should take another look at it as we go through. I just want to make sure I understand the issue. The issue is that to add a scattering garden, it would require an Act 250 permit. Is that right? So now this draft removes language about scattering gardens altogether. You might think that that was the wrong decision and want to add it back in and create a carve out for the Veterans Cemetery. But this version now omits the concept of a scattering garden. Okay. Okay. Yeah, and I think the bonus of that is that, again, if it's only the Veterans Cemetery that has to apply for an Act 250 permit for this purpose, any other cemetery that chooses to accept compost and remains can form one. Right, doesn't have to. Yeah. If there's not a cemetery, if it's another piece of land that does have an Act 250 permit, they'll have to deal with that, perhaps. But I think we're also far enough down the line that if, I think Bob testified that if there's a market, if people start asking for it, then that's when they would go ahead and apply for Act 250. Chris? Yeah, and I would concur with that. I think that the language now in the bill says that if they qualify and it's available, then you could do that. It doesn't mean that two years from now or a year from now that that might not be available in the VA cemetery. So, from the field director's point of view, I would encourage you to leave it in the statute. If it's available, they'll be able to provide that. If it's not, they won't, but at least the provision is there so that at some day or at some point it's available. They would be able to do it without having to come back and add this to legislation. And the same thing is true for the OCME's office. The likelihood that they go through a process where they have a body in your care that's unclaimed and natural organic reduction was the least expensive method of disposition. Is that cubic yard of soil going to go back necessarily to the OCME's office because they have custody of those remains or responsible through statute? I would suggest that you leave that in there as well because until that's available, that's not going to be the choice, but someday download it maybe. So I think the way the language is, the way Katie's done it, I think makes sense because we can't predict the future. No, we cannot. Any further comments right now? I mean, so if we, Katie, if we spend time on this just to review the amendment ourselves, I mean, we'll see what you've done to streamline it. Committee, are there any other issues that came up from the last conversation? Those are the only ones I saw in my notes regarding this process, regarding regarding the guard, regarding what happens if people don't want their, I mean, because it sounds like it sounds like from Carolyn's testimony that it's set up in a way that says that most people are going to donate most of that, but that there's a known way of disposing of the compost that I represent of Kallaki, Watson, and Murphy. Thank you, Chair. Chris, I just want to make sure I understood what you said. Are you saying that Katie's amended version that's on our committee website is the one you feel is a stronger, more focused version? Or are you saying there's elements in version one that need to be put into this amended version? I think that Katie's amendment appeared to me to just sort of clarify rather than to talk about multiple disposition facilities. It's just the disposition facility. Other than that, I didn't see any other language change from the original bill. Well, it's 20 pages shorter. Well, that's why I got confused, Chris. And the scattering grounds are now out. I thought you said it was good to keep them in. So if you're good with version two, that's all I need to hear. Yes. Great. Thank you. I'm trying to remember if there's a remaining question on moving the remains. Remember the issue of somebody dying outside of Vermont. That's a Department of Health rule. I think we determined that that was a Department of Health rule that they determine how to classify that. That's my memory of not that we assess the money from the Department of Health, but I think we've heard that the Department of Health's departments of health in other states are the ones that set those rules. They set those rules because I remember there was also a question. If you die in a state that does not have a natural reduction, that could be an issue. Right. Yeah. So if the Department of Health is going to take care of it, fine. It's I would imagine, I think, and I think Chris Blermo spoke a little bit to this in one of the testimonies over the last couple of weeks that those rules are, in place for the existing rules in that, in that tone. I'm going with regulation over statute on stuff that we don't know about yet. So I'm fine with living up to the Department of Health and working out with the other states. Well, just to follow up on that, that potentially the result is you'll have to get your body home, get your body back. And that's where the process takes place, that wherever you die, you have to have the body shipped home and then you have it taken care of because the states don't have that service. They're not going to just institute it because you died there. So that's just one thought. But what my real question about was also the follow up on, you know, donate, most people would donate their remains and no known way of disposing. And I'm very concerned with that when we have no idea if there's anywhere that's put themselves forward is wishing to receive this and the A&Rs in any way, cleared restoration areas that we're trying to build up as a place for this. And is that, I guess the question for us is, is that something we need to, you know, when there's no businesses, when there's no market yet, when there's, when there's no business that's come in to apply for the appropriate permits anyway? Is that an issue now? Or is that that we want to have more information on? Or is it something that we deal with when there's actually a business that's applying to business here? I think it's an issue at the beginning because I think you can't offer a business an opportunity if you don't know for sure that there's a disposition that allows that business to occur. You know, so many ways you can start at the end of the beginning, but I just think that this is something where there's a lot involved in what occurs with what's left. And I think that we just have to get, even if it's just asking A&R to spend a moment looking at it before the surely gets developed, I just. So to Carolyn, so how do you build a relationship? You mean with the land agency? Is that a question? Yes. Yes. So we've, we've proactively reached out to, for example, the Washington Department of Natural Resources to see if there are products that we could work on with them. It's a long process and we have reached out to over 20 different land trusts to also work out relationships with them. We are in ongoing conversations. I think that those will take probably a year or two because you have various boards of directors and getting everyone on board and then you have to communicate to people who would, any constituents who might be affected by it because you want to be very clear about where you're using this compost, how it's being used, making sure that everyone's comfortable with that and on board. And so I see that being a multi-year process for us, which is why in the meantime we have purchased private land that we'll be using so we don't have to go through that process, which is the same thing that other providers have done as well. But we'll continue those conversations because I think it could be really fruitful and really useful and very meaningful for people to have established places that are really beautiful places that they can go back to again and again. So we would love to see that develop, but I think that those relationships are just going to take some time and it's going to take a while to become comfortable with this use case. And just when you speak of reaching out, you're still referencing Washington state? All Washington state, yes, yes. But not Vermont, you haven't begun initial discussion for you. No, it takes a lot of time and effort and so we wouldn't start doing that and we wouldn't be putting the horse before the cart. Thank you. Representative Hango? I was just occurring to me when Representative Murphy was asking her question about timing of all of this. To me, I kind of thought it was simultaneous that the company that wished to do this was ready to go, we're going to pass a law and enable this to happen and then they were going to go through whatever permits or whatever they needed to set up their business. So this is a little bit new to me that nobody's even considering doing this yet. So I thought it would be a simultaneous process. I mean, I certainly don't mind being prepared ahead of time, but I just wondered what the immediacy of this is. Like how soon do you expect that somebody's going to want to set up this type of disposition facility in Vermont? Is that a question for me? I think so. Thank you. Yeah, happy to. So it can take some time to go through the rulemaking process and so as a private organization, we would likely wait to see what rules are actually implemented to make sure that it's feasible to do business. And then finding the land to either build a warehouse or rent a space out takes a little bit of time. And then again, finding land to either partner with someone who has existing land and use cases or to buy our own and work with a conservationist to actually develop a plan for that land. All of that stuff takes a good amount of time. In most of the states that have passed legislation, there's usually a six month to one year process of rulemaking before it actually is allowed to go live. So I think if the legislation were to pass all of those other research pieces would start so that when it actually goes live, that a company would be within six months of being able to then launch. Just because it costs a lot, it's a huge investment that you don't want to start making if there's any uncertainty about your ability to actually operate. Thank you. So it sort of seems like it's a chicken and egg type thing, but I guess my question was do you, does your company have an interest in establishing a facility in Vermont? You think it'd be very interesting, yes. Thank you. Representative Blumlee, that philosophy. You know, it seems to me what this is is kind of enabling legislation, right, that says, you know, this is yet, this is another form of disposition that the state will approve and that we, I can admit, I can very much imagine being a company and not wanting to invest all the time and effort in getting the Department of Health to try to come up with rules when there is no enabling legislation. And so, and you know, and so I guess I'm wondering, are we willing to, I do think you're, you know, you and Representative Murphy are kind of right about, you could, you could go either way, though I imagine that making, you know, preparing the state for, to, you know, for business in a certain area, certain field is a part of what we do and in the legislature. And we don't spell out all the rules. So, I guess I'm less concerned about the unknowns because I feel that we will be engaged in those kinds of conversations once we've said this is something that we can envision for Vermont. Representative Pluss. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And this question may have been asked already. I forgot it. What is, or has anybody checked into the actual interest level of Vermonters that would want this part for a burial for their family members? I know that it was an interest of a company maybe to commit and do it, expensive, all that could stop, but what's the interest level of the individuals or monitors that might lie to this? I would throw out, if anyone was interested in opening a business, that part of that business would be doing them whatever surveying they would need to do in order to justify, I think the last time we were here we talked about maybe Vermont is, you know, maybe it's regional, maybe it's Northern New England, that there's one center for this. But that's how I would just approach it, is that the business would be, as all business people are, if it's up to their due diligence to decide whether or not there's interest in the process. Right, and I agree with that, Mr. Chair, totally, but I'm just wondering, has anybody actually put the feelers out here to the people to see if there's any interest of our citizens that would even want this? Obviously, we would have to come from a business to see a business interest in providing a service. I was wondering if it was ever done, no matter if this is all plain pure speculation. It sounds like to me that it's setting up the court, or setting up the system, and then we'll see. I don't think there's a good answer for that representative right now, I just don't think that there's an answer period on that. Representative Clacky Murphy? Well, the lead sponsor of this bill is a representative of Partridge, and she is the one who has been championing this for a while now, and this was brought forward from people who are interested, and she is personally interested in this. Actually led by people who want to have this option available for themselves and for Vermonters, and we already have passed another law that we had another kind of disposition that hasn't been implemented as well. It's just a way of giving Vermonters options, and no business can stake any of this out unless versus it's possible to do because it's such an enormous time. But this wasn't led by businesses, it's led by individuals who are interested in this option for themselves. And so in the hallway, just talk to Representative Partridge about it. JP, she's very excited about it. Representative Trinnell? So this question is for Carolyn. As part of your development, have you reached out to private landowners to see if there are folks that we're willing to, we'll have large tracts of property or even medium size, but would be willing to use this compost in a way that would be acceptable to family members? We have not personally reached out to any private landowners, largely because it was just easier for us to find our own land and project, but I think that certainly is something that we could do down the line. Carolyn, the land that you bought to take on the remains, is that classified a cemetery? It is not. Okay. And for us, the remains are tested and environmentally sound to be used to be placed back into the environment. And again, the compost is not no longer human. It's truly biologically molecularly compost, and the family's all consent and fill out the authorization for the use and disposition up front. Okay, great. Chris, you had your hand up before. Did you still have a question or comment? No, I think that Carolyn answered the question quite well. So no, I'm fine. Great. Thank you. All right. So next steps for the committee is to reach out, I think, to A&R. We'll reread the amendment on our own for homework, just to see what, I know I need to reread it. I haven't looked at it since Katie presented it to us, but we'll work on seeing if A&R has an interest in talking about what the processes are for accepting this kind of material on where they need to permit a facility to just, whatever it takes to find out what their interest is. I'll reach out to A&R. We're going to spend a little bit of time scheduled after next week on this next Friday, I believe Friday is organic reduction day here in the committee this year. But let's just go with that and we'll be done for today with this little bit of stuff. So Carolyn, thank you again. Chris, thank you again for being here on the wall. Katie, thank you for your work so far. And we'll see where we are with the scheduling and you'll see it posted and we'll go from there. So thanks, everybody. Ronnie, you can stay alive for a minute.