Why are tens of thousands of plastic "burial vaults" stacked in a field near Madison, Georgia?

July 20th, 2008

I have no idea what to make of this one. All of the sites I was able to find that reference this stockpile assume that it has something to do with an upcoming American holocaust and martial law, etc. Again, I have no idea.

Let's try to work trough this one a bit…

First of all, what are they?

The product is called a “Burial Vault.” They are made by PolyGuard Vaults. Their website describes the product as follows:

A Burial Vault is an outside receptacle or container, in which the casket and remains are placed, at the time of burial. This helps to maintain the above ground aesthetics of the grave site.

Polyguard Burial Vaults are now manufactured using an injection moulding process, and constructed of non-biodegradable, water and chemical resistant polymers.

So, they're not coffins, but liners in which coffins would be placed before burial.

I did some more research to determine if the government did business with PolyGuard Vaults. Indeed, the U.S. Veterans Administration has been buying Burial Vaults from PolyGuard Vaults for years. Use fedspending.org to look up the contracts. Click the Contracts tab and type in Polyguard.

You can go back to the year 2000. When you use the Level of Detail: Complete (all information) setting, this will show more detail. In the “Contract Description” fields you'll see: THERMOPLASTIC GRAVELINERS. So, it seems to make sense that the VA would be buying these things…

Here's a reference with regard to casket burials in a cemetery in Hawaii. This is from the Aloha Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America:

Casket burials now require Polyguard Burial Vault at a cost of $220 for family members and no charge for the Retiree, Veteran or Active Duty personnel. The vaults were required to prevent the burial site from settling and collapsing following the burial.

Anyone looking into this situation in Georgia might find the VA contracts and just think, “Yep, the VA bought them, nothing to see here.” An interesting question would be: How many units did the VA get? I haven't been able to determine that. If we knew that, we'd be able figure out roughly how many casket burials were happening at VA run cemeteries vs. how many Burial Vaults were ordered. If there was a large difference, well, we would have a pretty good idea of where the extra units went…

Where are they?

They are in a field near Madison, Georgia, just off of Lion's Club Road and next to (as far as I can tell) a Fowler Flemister Concrete plant. See coordinates: +33° 33′ 57.36″, -83° 29′ 6.26″.

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