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Fears of mercury, and other concerns, have sparked Oro Valley residents' outrage over a funeral chapel and crematorium expected to be built in Rancho Vistoso. Construction on Vistoso Memorial Chapel, 2285 E. Rancho Vistoso Blvd., could start as soon as this spring at Rancho Vistoso Boulevard and Vistoso Commerce Loop. But some residents of a Rancho Vistoso neighborhood a quarter-mile north of the site are fighting to stop it. Larry and Brenda Ryan collected 420 signatures on petitions asking for the town to retract its approval of the funeral chapel and crematorium. The Oro Valley Town Council had approved a development plan for Vistoso Memorial Chapel on Nov. 1. "There's no way legally for the Town Council to overturn its action," said Bob Kovitz, Oro Valley's spokesman. The Ryans presented the petitions to Oro Valley Town Clerk Kathryn Cuvelier at the Feb. 7 council meeting. They and other concerned residents packed the council chambers that night. A handful of residents also picketed at the site of the future funeral chapel and crematorium earlier that day. The Ryans have been campaigning to raise public awareness of the development. "There are so many problems," said Brenda Ryan, 67. "We want people to see what's going on." Residents are concerned about whether living near a crematorium could harm their health and quality of life from exposure to mercury emissions and other air pollution, the stigma of living near a crematorium and potential effects on home values, she said. The owner of the future Vistoso Memorial Chapel, Douglas Harpold, moved into the same neighborhood last year and said there's nothing to fear. "I certainly wouldn't have chosen this neighborhood to move into if there were health concerns for my wife and for my children," said Harpold, 37. "There will not be smoke pouring out of smokestacks or noxious odors," he said. He researched whether other crematoriums moving into neighborhoods hurt home values and found that values increased with time as in other neighborhoods, he said. Controversy over crematoriums is also happening nationwide. Cremations, typically much less expensive than burials, are becoming more popular, creating a demand for new crematoriums. Last month, a company in Tampa, Fla., changed its planned location for a crematorium from residential Tampa Heights to look for a more industrial location, according to an article in The Tampa Tribune. The Tampa Heights property's zoning would have permitted a crematorium, but residents' complaints to the county's Environmental Protection Commission and the city encouraged the property owner to seek a new location, according to the article. Arizona has the country's fifth-highest percentage of cremations, according to the Cremation Association of North America's 2004 statistics. Nearly 60 percent of people who died in Arizona in 2005 were cremated.