ACTION ALERT! Do you believe all human burials deserve equal dignity and protection under the law, regardless of land ownership? Then please urge your state legislators to act swiftly in 2023 to pass the New York State Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act (2023-S630) and send it to the Governor before the legislative session ends in June.
After Governor Hochul vetoed the bill late last year, New York remains one of only three states lacking adequate legal protections for human burials. Under current state law, human remains and funerary objects unearthed in burials on private land are owned by the property owner. It is well past time for New York to join the vast majority of forty-seven other states in protecting all human burials from unlimited disturbance or destruction, even on private land.
All human burials in our state deserve equal dignity and protection under the law, regardless of land ownership.
Thankfully, the Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act (S630) is back on the legislative agenda in 2023! We are grateful to State Senator Leroy Comrie, for taking the lead in sponsoring this important bill once again. In light of its unanimous approval by both chambers in 2022, we anticipate this bill will proceed quickly through the legislative process in 2023.
Please join Preservation Long Island in urging our state officials to enact the Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act (S630)!
Click HERE to find your New York State Representative.
Read press coverage about the veto:
https://www.eastendbeacon.com/hochul-vetoes-indigenous-graves-protection-act/
Recent Burial Site Advocacy on Long Island
In September 2020 after developers unearthed human remains when building a house on Sugarloaf Hill, the Shinnecock Nation’s ancestral burial grounds, the Southampton Town Board voted unanimously on September 8th to approve its own Graves Protection Act and the Shinnecock Hills Building Moratorium.
Click HERE to read our Preservation Update about the outcome of the 2020 Shinnecock Nation advocacy effort.
