Pierce County no longer scatters unclaimed cremains at sea. Why did they stop?

The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office will inter the unclaimed cremated remains of more than 300 people at an upcoming ceremony, rather than scattering them at sea.

Prior to 2021, the Medical Examiner typically scattered unclaimed ashes in Puget Sound — there were scattering ceremonies on the water in 2014, 2016 and 2017. 2021 was the first year that the county interred unclaimed remains at a local cemetery, instead.

The next ceremony — another interment — will take place on May 15, 2025 at 11:30 a.m. at the Haven of Rest funeral home. More than 300 unclaimed people will be interred, all of whom passed away in Pierce County prior to Nov. 9, 2024 and whose names can be found on Pierce County’s website, according to a press release from the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Remains are unclaimed if a family does not wish to take possession of the ashes or if relatives cannot be found, according to the release, which also states that families may contact the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office before May 13, 2025 to claim remains before they are interred.

In 2021, the county’s unclaimed cremains were also interred at Haven of Rest funeral home in Gig Harbor. This change was possible because of Haven of Rest’s offer to donate space for the ashes, said Luke Vogelsberg, the director of operations at the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office. He said the office would prefer to inter cremains rather than scatter them, but do not always have the resources to do so. Interment allows families to claim cremated remains later on, and provides more space for attendance of the ceremony than there is on the boat, Vogelsberg said. Some attendees at the ceremonies are members of the public hoping to pay respects to strangers, while others have familial connections to the deceased, Vogelsberg said. Once remains are interred, custody falls to the funeral home, so those seeking to claim interred remains would need to contact Haven of Rest, he added.

“There’s some benefits to doing it that way (interment), including more capacity to involve the community, rather than out on a boat with very limited access,” Vogelsberg said.

Everyone is welcome, he said, “whether they’ve got a family member that’s being interred, or just want to come honor these lives.”

Vogelsberg said future interments may depend on whether there is a space available to house cremains. He said the Medical Examiner’s Office was grateful that Haven of Rest had once again volunteered to donate space for the upcoming interment, but should that not be an option in the future, the Medical Examiner would plan to search for interment options with other cemeteries that could donate space.

President of the Washington Association of Coroners/Medical Examiners and Skagit County Coroner Hayley Thompson said in an email to The News Tribune that there is currently no standard practice for the disposition of unclaimed cremains from medical examiner offices in Washington state, noting that state laws and county policies usually set standards. Washington has no law outlining the interment of unclaimed cremains, she wrote in the email, so each county works with a designated funeral home or cemetery on a plan that usually involves interring remains or scattering them at sea.