Local humane society leaders hope a new crematorium will help dispose of the 3,500 animals it must do away with each year.

Larry Tidd, president of the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri, said the organization started looking at crematoriums in response to stricter Environmental Protection Agency landfill guidelines. While animals may be put in landfills now, Tidd said the time is coming when they won't be allowed.

In addition, humane society members agreed it was better to cremate animals than dump them in a landfill.

"We feel strongly as a society that this would be death with dignity," he said at a press conference Thursday.

In an average year, 4,300 dogs, cats, rabbits and other animals are dropped off at the shelter but only 800 adopted. With nowhere to put the rest and no money to care for them, animal shelter employees must kill the animals by lethal injection.

"I stomp and cry and say I just can't do it, but then I go in there and put them to sleep," said Jhan White, shelter administrator. "We keep telling people, spay and neuter, spay and neuter. Maybe someday it will make a difference."

The crematorium would be constructed on Route W near the shelter and enclosed in a garage. It would comply with EPA standards and not produce smoke or odor.

Humane society interviews with nearby residents revealed they don't object to its construction, but there will be some hurdles to jump. The first is a Cape Girardeau Planning and Zoning Commission meeting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday to ask for a special-use permit.

Another hurdle is the structure's $40,000 price tag. The humane society is planning fund-raising projects to help finance it and hopes the community will help.

The crematorium will be available to veterinarians and people whose animals die at home. The price for using it will range from around $20 to $100, depending on whether the customer wants his pet's ashes back.

The closest large pet crematorium is in St. Louis, but Merry Lea Animal Clinic has a small one in Jackson. White said she had a dog cremated there and scattered his ashes in the wind.

There are humane societies in Sikeston, Farmington and Carbondale, Ill., and they will be welcome to use the Cape Girardeau facility for animal disposal, Tidd said.

He hopes the facility will be in operation by early 1996.