Demand outpaces space at Arlington Cemetery

Cemetery will close sometime between 2025 and 2060

By Mark E. Heckathorn

With more than 300,000 people buried in Arlington National Cemetery, the 1,100-acre plot in Virginia overlooking the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument and the Pentagon is approaching capacity.

Even with the recently-completed Section 90 expansion, which covers 40 acres and added about 26,000 gravesites and 5,000 niches for the remains of those who have been cremated, the Government Accountability Office estimates the cemetery will be full by the year 2025.

Government officials “are looking for additional land in the area,” said Patricia Wheaton, an information clerk at the cemetery’s visitor center. With an average of 27 funerals every weekday, the cemetery is filling up and no adjoining land is immediately available for expansion.

Quantico National Cemetery closest to Washington

If land for a new cemetery cannot be found in the Washington, D.C., area, veterans and others eligible for burial at Arlington will have to be interred at other national cemeteries, said Linda German, a cemetery spokeswoman. Quantico National Cemetery in Triangle, Va., south of Washington, is the closest national cemetery, she said.

“When the time arrives that Arlington can not accomplish any more funerals, Arlington will be closed as an active cemetery, but be maintained as a national shrine and will still be the site for ceremonies and visitation,” Arlington National Cemetery historian Thomas L. Sherlock said in an email.

Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Soldier’s and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery in Washington are the only cemeteries administered by the Department of the Army. The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains 124 cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico and 33 soldiers’ lots. The National Park Service administers another 14 national cemeteries, but only two of those are still active.

Cemetery officials seek funds to expand cemetery

In testimony before the House of Representative’s subcommittee on disability and memorial affairs on Mar. 30, 2006, Arlington National Cemetery Superintendent John C. Metzler Jr. sought funding for the Millennium Project, which would add seven acres currently within the cemetery’s boundaries with the demolition of old warehouses, an additional 12 acres that was transferred from the National Park Service in 2002 and a 13-acre parcel of adjacent land that was formerly a picnic area at the neighboring Fort Myer army base.

The cemetery averages 800 gravesites per acre, according to its Web site.

Almost $6 million is included in the Fiscal Year 2007 budget for preliminary work on Project Millennium and another $2.1 million is in the FY 2008 budget. If funded, the Millennium Project would add another 35 years to the cemetery’s life.

“At the current rate of 6,000 funerals a year, Arlington is expected to reach its capacity around the year 2060,” Sherlock said. “The capacity is projected to be at over 400,000.”

Burial requirements get stricter as cemetery fills

“Many, many years ago, the requirements for burial in the cemetery were not as strict,” German said. “But as gravesites filled up, stricter requirements were enacted.”

“Prior to 1967, the burial eligibility criteria for Arlington was any honorably discharged veterans and their dependents,” Sherlock said. “After 1967, the eligibility was restricted to the current eligibility requirements. The stricter requirement extended the burial life for Arlington greatly.”

Families had also been allowed to place their own headstone on the graves or have a familiar, white government-issued marker with its rounded top. That policy was changed to conserve space, Wheaton said. “Now everyone has to have a government-provided stone."

The cemetery includes veterans and other “exceptional individuals” including presidents, astronauts and Supreme Court justices, according to cemetery information.

Veterans from the Revolutionary War to the current military action in Iraq and Afghanistan have been buried at Arlington since it opened in 1864. Over 3,800 freed slaves are also buried in the cemetery along with other dignitaries.

Land not planned as cemetery

Arlington House, which still stands on the cemetery’s grounds, was originally planned as a living memorial to George Washington by his adopted grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. It was passed down to his daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, who married Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. It was confiscated in 1864 by the federal government when she failed to pay property taxes levied against the Arlington estate in person.

The property was offered for public sale on Jan. 11, 1864, and was purchased by a tax commissioner for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes."

The cemetery was established by Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, who commanded the garrison at Arlington House. Meigs appropriated the grounds June 15, 1864, for use as a military cemetery. His intention was to render the house uninhabitable should the Lee family ever attempt to return.

Curtis Lee, eldest son of the Lees, claimed that the land had been illegally confiscated and that, according to his grandfather's will, he was the legal owner. In December 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, returned the property to him, saying it had been confiscated without due process

Lee, however, did not like living among the 16,000 bodies that had already been buried there and sold the property. Congress purchased the property from Lee for $150,000 on Mar. 3, 1883.

Copyright 2007 Mark E. Heckathorn