Health Dept. orders permanent closing of Lares cemetery

Health Secretary Víctor Ramos Otero

By The Star Staff

The island Department of Health has ordered the permanent closure of the Lares Municipal Cemetery, deeming it unusable due to ongoing land subsidence toward the “Los Muertos” ravine.

Health Secretary Víctor Ramos Otero stated that the situation poses a risk to public health, as runoff from the ravine flows into the river that feeds Lake Guajataca.

“I was unaware of the recommendation from the Department of Health’s Office of Environmental Health that had been made a long time ago,” Ramos Otero said, adding that he also “reached out to the director of COR3 [Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency]” about the matter.

“The issue arose because FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] was interested in rebuilding on the site. However, part of the cemetery was deemed not rebuildable,” the Health chief continued. “While there was an area where rebuilding was considered possible, floods caused the land to rise significantly, resulting in bodies falling into the ravine below. Therefore, FEMA needed a closure order from the mayor so that COR3 could submit a request to rebuild the cemetery in a different location. There was already an environmental health recommendation and a COR3 recommendation from some time ago, which were presented to me and subsequently signed.”

The Lares Municipal Cemetery (Cementerio Municipal de Lares) dates to 1855. The predominantly Catholic cemetery has grown over time from its original two acres. Today, the 11-acre burial ground has more than 5,000 mausoleums and crypts – many holding group interments. The cemetery embodies distinctive characteristics of Spanish colonial design – eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places – and is an important part of the community and historical culture.

Nonetheless, landslides and flooding have impacted the cemetery calling for a temporary relocation of unearthed sites. Groundwater infiltration and runoff associated with Hurricane Maria alone impacted some 1,800 tombs and plots within the modern section of the cemetery. The cemetery’s historic section was unaffected.

The Health Department temporarily closed the cemetery after the hurricanes due to health and safety risks and out of respect for the wider community. The damaged portion of the cemetery was geologically unstable and could not continue in use without costly remediation of the tombs, grave sites, and the cemetery.

Staff with FEMA’s Public Assistance Program helped to temporarily relocate grave sites with exposed or unearthed interments with federal funding.