Flat land is at a premium in Santa Coloma. Its 124,000 people are shoehorned into just 1.5 square miles. There just wasn’t enough space to build a large enough solar farm to be effective. There was some resistance at first; citizens were concerned about such an installation showing a lack of respect for the 57,000 dead buried at the town’s cemetery. Eventually, the town council won public approval through a careful public-awareness campaign, and installed some 460 solar panels on the mausoleums throughout the cemetery.

Now, “There has not been any problem whatsoever because people who go to the cemetery see that nothing has changed. This installation is compatible with respect for the deceased and for the families of the deceased,” said Antoni Fogue, a city council member who was a driving force behind the plan.

Could something like this catch on here in the States? Possibly. It wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Now it’s spread to Canada, apparently.

I supposed that’s not correct. It’s not a disease that can be spread. It’s just…what? Bad morals? Poor upbringing? That’s not a fair thing to say, as we don’t know anything about the parenting involved.

And the issue of theft and fraud in the funeral industry isn’t uncommon, unfortunately. An Alabama funeral director was recently arrested as well.

What can be done to prevent such crimes? Probably not much, sadly. The funds involved are typically held in trust by the funeral home, and the customers are relying on the integrity of the funeral home and its staff. Short of eliminating the trust option from pre-paid funeral contracts, I’m not certain anything can be done.