Woman decries flooded gravemarkers at Champion cemetery

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

CHAMPION

Robin Brown of Youngstown has been visiting the Meadow Brook Memorial Park Cemetery on State Road since her father was buried there 19 years ago.

The cemetery seemed like a good choice because it catered to military veterans like her father.

But over the past five years, something has apparently changed with the drainage at the cemetery because water now covers many of the flat grave markers on a regular basis.

“This is gross. This is disgusting,” Brown said as she walked recently near her parents’ graves wearing boots and looking at nearly an inch of water covering both markers.

“This shouldn’t happen. This is what I came to visit? This is my mom and my dad,” she said. “Why is there so much water? My dad died 19 years ago. It was never like that.”

Brown said she has visited the cemetery five times this year on holidays and birthdays. “There was only one day when it wasn’t under water,” she said.

“It just keeps getting worse and worse,” she said.

On multiple visits by The Vindicator to the cemetery over the past month, water has covered many of the markers, which are flat and level with the ground.

Brown said she talked to the cemetery’s management about the problem, and they said construction in the area is to blame for the higher water levels.

But Champion Township Trustee Rex Fee said he is not aware of any construction near the cemetery in decades. What is just east of the cemetery is a stream called Chocolate Run, Fee pointed out.

“They built a cemetery near a drainage area,” Fee said.

Joe McNemar, president and CEO of CMS East Inc., the company that owns the cemetery and 23 others in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina, says he believes the primary reason for the high water is that it has been “a wet spring.” He said 2018 also was “a real wet year,” and his company has not done anything to change the drainage.

He said the only other cause he could point to is there is farmland to the east of the cemetery. “The farmer may have changed the way he farms, but we have no control over that,” McNemar said.

“Unfortunately, we can’t control the amount of rain. I believe if you visit any cemetery or yard, it has been a really wet year and has caused problems everywhere,” he said.

McNemar, who was the company’s legal counsel before taking over as CEO, said the company has not had a lot of complaints regarding the water.

Brown says the high water is also destroying the brass grave markers because the water deposits dirt and algae on them. When the cemetery dries out, the dirt gets baked into the brass. For that reason, she brings cleaning supplies with her to clean the markers.

She also thinks the conditions are a slap in the face to military veterans and their families.

“Is this the way you show them respect?” she said.

“How would you feel if you were going to visit the grave for a family member and had to wear boots and there was an inch or two under water? That’s craziness, and this is for our veterans.

“I want to be able to visit my parents and not see the graves under water and not see algae on the stone.”