Cremation a hazard to the living?

In Larimer County, the issue came to a head this year when Allnutt applied for a special-use permit to relocate his crematory, which conducts 450 cremations per year.

Neighbors immediately seized on the mercury issue.

"There's a very real problem," said Dennis Lynch, a retired forest sciences professor at Colorado State University who read the available research and wrote a paper on his findings. "Crematoriums have gotten a free pass for a long time. We should be asking them to do their civic responsibility and do prevention of some kind."

Allnutt, who owns a chain of funeral homes in northern Colorado, hired a consultant to estimate the facility's potential effects. In a worst-case scenario, a model found that mercury levels could rise above recommended short-term exposure limits.

The findings persuaded Doug Ryan, Larimer County's environmental-health planner, to recommend that county commissioners grant Allnutt's permit only if he agreed to reduce emissions. The county has the authority to do so, Ryan said, because applicants for special-use permits must show that their facility will be compatible with their surroundings. In this case, Ryan said, compatibility means preventing mercury exposure.

At a planning commission meeting in November, Allnutt made his stand, and the county planning commission, an advisory board, voted against granting him a permit. Allnutt hasn't decided whether to pursue a hearing before the Board of Commissioners.

The county was unfair, he said, in asking him to do something none of his competitors must do. Installing a smokestack filter at $500,000 would put him at an automatic disadvantage, he said.

But he also said he'll never pull teeth -- even if it means getting out of the cremation business. "I won't do that," Allnutt said. "It's a moral issue."

deedee.correll@latimes.com