What can be done about tilting, fallen monuments at Lasalle Cemetery?
CBC
Around 10 years ago, Bianca Forestell started tracing her family tree.
Forestell said her ancestors have been living in and around Lively (now a neighbourhood of the City of Greater Sudbury, Ont.) and Creighton Mine for the last 125 years or so.
Now, she tends the plots of more than 60 of her relatives, buried at the Lasalle Cemetery.
"It's basically my way of showing appreciation and respect for the ones who came before me," Forestell said.
But as she walks through, she said she also notices how uneven the ground is, and all the tipped, tilted, or flattened stones dotting the landscape.
"Honest to God, it's everywhere," she said.
"I've actually had a few family stones that have fallen over in the past year due to the ground shifting. I just got the quote [for one of them]. It's a $2,200 repair bill."
Sudbury Councillor Mike Parent said Forestell isn't the only one who's noticed fallen and tilting monuments. He asked city staff to prepare a report on how to address the problem, which was delivered to the Community and Emergency Services Committee at its January meeting.
Seventy-five per cent of the monuments at Lasalle Cemetery need some level of attention, according to that report.
Due to a lack of sufficient funds and concerns about volunteer safety and expertise, the manager of cemetery services said things will remain the same for now, but Parent has said he's interested in rallying volunteers and meeting to brainstorm solutions.
Lasalle Cemetery, which first opened in the 1950s, now holds over 10,000 gravestones.
Since then, the ground moving — and the gravestones falling or leaning — has been a consistent problem because there's so much clay in the soil, according to Ray Ingriselli, Sudbury's manager of cemetery services.
"[Clay] holds a lot of water," Ingriselli explained. "With the frost and freeze and thaw cycle in the seasons, it tends to make the ground heave."
Forestell has been watching it happen over the last decade.
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