Posted on 03/17/2009 3:06:28 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Ebensburg, Pa. (AP) --
A western Pennsylvania Amish farmer was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail after refusing to bring a pair of outhouses into compliance with state sewage laws.
Andy Swartzentruber, of Ebensburg, cited his conservative religious beliefs in refusing to abide by a court order to make the privies used by schoolchildren compliant and pay a $500 fine.
Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker said he respected the Amish's religious beliefs but had no choice but to sentence Swartzentruber to jail and fine him $1,000 for being in contempt of court.
"Quite frankly, this is not a religious issue," Krumenacker said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
TROP would approve as well, as most are adorned with crescents. Most likely they are for shi’ites..
And now one of them gets to sample all the modern conveniences of the prison.
I hope he handles iron and stainless steel well. :-]
Thanks for that! I used to tell people my garden (which was one of the best if not the best in my small town of 750), that everything eaten from it was grown in pure manure. Of course it was composted cow manure but have you seen fresh cow manure? I could eat from the bounty of my composted manure but seeing a dog of ours slurp up some fresh cow manure sent me into a fit of gagging that would not quit!
Only the “Religion of Peace” could get a free pass on those charges.
Seesh, we’re all too removed from a lot of this stuff. I’ll wager there is no ‘raw sewage’, or even anything close coming from these outhouses going on to any fields that raise foods directly consumed by humans.
Amish are old fashioned, not stupid.
Check out any large dairy farm or hog farm. The excrement (i.e. raw sewage) is collected, stored, loaded into tanks or wagons pulled by a tractor, and sprayed on the fields. Any excess is simply sprayed on the farm next door, you know, the one that doesn't have cows or hogs, but grows tomatoes or cabbage, and that farmer says, "Thank you".
Are we heading for an Upton Sinclair moment?? Ban manure and our food production will gradually decrease to the point where we won't be able to feed ourselves much less the rest of the world.
Think about the E-coli problem that got blamed on the tomatoe growers.
Turned out to be MEXICAN peppers.
They will drop trousers and crap wherever they are...they don’t care where.
That round of E-Coli was just one example.
Leave the Amish alone for petes sake.
We have far more pressing matters and they are harmless decent people.
Side by side or over under ?
:-)
“Im sorry, but dumping raw sewage onto agricultural fields doesnt seem the least bit clean. I agree with trying to avoid a lot of modern technology, but I have to draw the line at raw sewage.”
I hear you, but I don’t think one needs to use the modern devices that are being prescribed. I think there are probably non-mechanical ways to deal with the sewage that are still sanitary. For instance a compost area were things are left to decompose until the bacteria levels get acceptable, or something.
Thanks, you’ve proved my point. Were WAY too far removed from to know our food is produced, and that’s not a good thing.
I’ve raised over 250,000 hogs. Usually they received a big premium at the slaughter house because they were of the highest quality.
Among my other duties, I was the one who was in charge of pumping the manure onto the fields. One of my other distasteful duties was killing sick animals. Ive shot thousands.
Many, many times I was drenched to the bone with hog manure, but none of what you posted was even remotely true, even way back then. With todays EPA the foolishness you talk about would result in fines in the hundreds of thousands and no farm would risk it.
***Sure makes one think twice before buying any produce from any Amish. Might as well buy it in Mexico.***
Don’t worry. They wash with homemade LYE soap. It will clean anything!
I love the Amish, and would gladly eat anything they grew, cooked or processed. They are great people. One simple Amish farmer is worth more than all the stupid judges combined that we have in the U.S. today.
***but seeing a dog of ours slurp up some fresh cow manure sent me into a fit of gagging that would not quit!***
Many years ago we had cat that had the scours. As it stopped to “poop” (no time to dig a hole) our pet dog was there slurping it up. My dad saw it and got sick. He had a very weak stomach.
Composting entails taking the “"raw sewage"” placing it in a pile and mixing it with other leafy vegetation as well as other soils( depending on what you have on hand and your needs) occasionally turning it and leave it to "cook"i.e, breakdown by micros into nutrient rich soil after at least a year.
This is what you pay big bucks for this "potting soil" at your local garden store.
Farmers have been doing this for centuries, long before the era of petroleum based fertilizers times.
Raw sewage will burn the roots of a plant thus killing it. Plus if the Amish were doing it wrong, there would be be mass outbreaks of typhoid, Salmonella poisonings etc, etc. in Amish communities that third world countries get from true raw sewage
We did the same thing with cow mature to grow our garden year after year and got great harvests and stocked pantries and nobody ever got sick from food poisoning.
Something the "government inspected" Food industry cannot claim.
And unlike the corporates heads of major industrial Food producers and restaurants, the Amish regularly consume what they produce.
Uneducated bureaucrats and the media will be the death of our freedoms as well as our persons.
I just stepped out on the back porch. Someone is spreading chicken manure. It has been inthe air for the last three days. Not strong, but way off. The smell travels for miles.
Cow manure stinks but not real bad.
Chicken manure really stinks with a piquant ammonia aftertase on the tongue and eyes.
Pig manure stinks beyone aything immaginable! Super Bad!
Human manure from the sewage treatment plant stinks with a sickly sweet smell.
Horse manure smells like Congress is in session.
An article from SF about the Amish?
I don’t think anyone posting understands the Amish. The Amish in the Lancaster area used to believe that everything that came off the land should go back on.
They overfertilized the fields and raised the Nitrogen level in wells to brain-shrinking dangerous levels.
After they were hit upside the head (necessary to get their attention) they started selling the excess fertilizer to city types and making a buck instead of poisoning their wells. They do understand money is green.
“Im sorry, but dumping raw sewage onto agricultural fields doesnt seem the least bit clean.”
Sewage can be dumped on a farm field in PA but it must be plowed under every evening.
The same farm field cannot be used to grow food for human consumption for five years after the last disposal. Rules may have been updated, but that’s what they were before the wackos took over, probably more restrictive now.
Think about that next time you see sod at your local home center.
My first paid day of work (50 cents) was baling hay for the day on my god father's farm.
I have some great memories of working and playing on the farm, and I still love the smell of “fresh country air”, when the manure spreader hits the field in springtime!
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