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Amish Community Fined Over Outhouse Controversy
www.wjactv.com ^ | February 14, 2008 | Channel 6 News and WJACTV.com

Posted on 02/15/2008 8:10:48 AM PST by ThinkingBuddha

BARR TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Controversy over a manmade outhouse could end up with members of an Amish community in jail.

Neighbors of the Cambria County Amish community complained about the bathroom facilities the Amish are using because they take waste from their outhouse and dump it onto their property.

The property is in the same area near underground wells for nearby residents.

The complaints made to the Cambria County Sewage Enforcement Agency were investigated and citations were filed against the Amish property owners.

The owners said they refuse to pay any fines, because it is against their religious beliefs, and will go to jail if necessary.

Deborah Sedlmeyer, of the Cambria County Sewage Enforcement Agency, said the law doesn't allow residents to discharge sewage onto their property and outhouses must have an approved containing device. The Amish community in question has neither, and nearby residents said that's what concerns them.

"Some of them have had concerns about water quality. There are some on-site wells, so obviously there's an issue. The sewage is often times discharged (and) placed onto the ground, so there are some water quality issues."

The Amish families in Barr Township said they are aware they are facing a list of charges, but said they would not compromise their beliefs because of it.

"If they don't comply, they will be fined. They don't believe in the payment of fines, so they've already attested that they will go to jail in lieu of paying fines," Sedlmeyer said.

The Amish families live a very simple lifestyle with no electricity or cars and said it is against their religion to make the upgrades. They also said they don't mean to bother anyone in the area and are just trying to live the way their forefathers did.

"We certainly respect them for their religious beliefs, but as Pennsylvania residents, they are required to follow state law," Sedlmeyer said.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: amish
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To: 2banana

“Crazy Amish at it again - what next?”

They might even get cell phones!


21 posted on 02/15/2008 8:58:15 AM PST by GGpaX4DumpedTea
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To: 2banana

“Crazy Amish at it again - what next?”

They might even get cell phones!


22 posted on 02/15/2008 9:00:06 AM PST by GGpaX4DumpedTea
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To: ThinkingBuddha

Oh s@#t.


23 posted on 02/15/2008 9:10:11 AM PST by colorado tanker
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To: ThinkingBuddha

What exactly is against their religious belief? Dumping their sewage on other people’s property? Or are they being told to install an electric toilet?

This doesn’t sound like a representative Amish person to me.


24 posted on 02/15/2008 9:12:55 AM PST by DannyTN
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To: lexington minuteman 1775

I wonder what these people think the Animals in the area are doing? Is human waste more toxic to ground water than pigs, cows and sheep ?


25 posted on 02/15/2008 9:15:17 AM PST by stompk
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To: ThinkingBuddha
Were the Amish there first?
26 posted on 02/15/2008 9:16:10 AM PST by BillT
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To: GGpaX4DumpedTea

LOL Some of them already have them, teenage girls in particular. At least they do here in Ohio.


27 posted on 02/15/2008 9:18:27 AM PST by Wiser now (Happiness is not an absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them.)
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To: ThinkingBuddha
thinking of a hot topic on here recently,
maybe the Amish could “go” in plastic bags and sent them to the dump. then there would be an outcry about plastic bags, and then they would be required to use an outhouse.

:-)

28 posted on 02/15/2008 9:19:13 AM PST by stompk
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To: blu
How long have the Amish and the outhouses been there? How long have the complainers been there? I’d bet the Amish have been there longer, and so have “sqatter’s” rights!

When I lived in Pennsylvania, our home used to be next to an Amish farm! Amish use horse and Cow manure to fertilize their fields. So we would get some really strong smell from their fields.

A couple of my neighbors filled a complaint against the Amish. The problem here is that their homes were built in 2001, next to a farm that was built before the USA even declared independence!

I have long since moved from PA, but I don't to know what hapened to that petition/complaint!!
29 posted on 02/15/2008 9:22:25 AM PST by ThinkingBuddha
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To: DannyTN
What exactly is against their religious belief? Dumping their sewage on other people’s property? Or are they being told to install an electric toilet? This doesn’t sound like a representative Amish person to me.

They dump their sewage on THEIR property; as they have been doing for a few hundred years. It is the hippies who moved next door (to be closer to nature, I guess), who have a problem with this "organic" lifestyle.

Well, the hippies are taking control of the country (just ask Pelosi,Boxer etc... only they have a right to determine what is organic, what is a natural and and acceptable lifestyle /sarcasm
30 posted on 02/15/2008 9:32:53 AM PST by ThinkingBuddha
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To: stompk

actually yes. human waste isn’t used as fertilizer because, i’v always been told, it contaminates.


31 posted on 02/15/2008 9:36:03 AM PST by annelizly
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To: The Electrician

I had exactly the same question. In central Nevada, there’s still all sorts of outhouses, some still in use on remote ranches.

Never saw one of them that just up and grew from the surrounding sagebrush.

ps — the WPA-made outhouses from the 1930’s were vastly over-engineered and are still around. Quite the bit of construction - most of them were two or four holers.


32 posted on 02/15/2008 9:36:15 AM PST by NVDave
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To: pnh102

I KNEW it! And they probably have a crescent on the outhouse door. Where’s homeland security on this?


33 posted on 02/15/2008 9:37:38 AM PST by purpleraine
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To: gridlock

I agree with you there, they probably aren’t contaminating anything. Just like the lagoons some folks in the country flush their waste into. Nature cleanses, it’s dealt with by the ecosystem. Flush toilets are a pretty recent invention.
Google: Thomas Crapper


34 posted on 02/15/2008 9:39:45 AM PST by SaintDismas (.)
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To: chrisser
It's been an uphill battle to get the Amish to put an outhouse over the slit-trench.

They could easily revert.

35 posted on 02/15/2008 9:41:58 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: DannyTN
....."told to install an electric toilet?"......

I was thinking that there might be more to this also. In Texas, we have been under attack for about a decade now. There is almost no land that I know of that you can buy here now that will pass the "perc" test. People pay much extra for a "grandfathered" septic system. All raw lands with no septic must have the new aerobic systems. It seems the perc tests always fail, the inspector is always the brother in law of the guy that inspects the aerobic systems every year for $300, and the installer is somebodies cousin. If you try to fight it, they always start to accuse you of fouling the groundwater. If you have 20 acres and your well is 400 ft from the septic, that just doesn't seem good enough. Used to be the well would be just a few yards from the septic and that was ok for 200 years, now they start talking of fouling water tables miles away.

It's about money and control, not pollution.

36 posted on 02/15/2008 9:43:39 AM PST by chuckles
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To: ThinkingBuddha

I used to live in the northern part of Lancaster County. You got used to the smell of manure & only really noticed it when it was freshly spread (like during the late winter/early spring when they were getting ready to turn the soil. The thing that I really never got used to were the flies.


37 posted on 02/15/2008 9:48:20 AM PST by Tallguy (Tagline is offline till something better comes along...)
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To: chrisser
Now that said, since septic systems (at least the anaerobic ones) don't require any mechanics, it would seem that the Amish could be convinced to put in slightly more effective systems for human waste treatment without compromising their beliefs. People who work the land tend to have more respect for it. I suspect there is some justification in wanting to keep human waste out of the runoff water, but those who are advocating it likely chose the blunt instrument of government coersion over the more effective and efficient instruments of education and cooperation.

If the community forces the issue the Amish will 'adjust'. They always do.

They do refrigerate their raw milk on-site until the dairy truck pumps them out. They use diesel generators to create their own electricity for this. So you see the prohibition is not "no electricity", but has become "no utilities". Al Gore would love this.

Another 'adjustment' is the orange triangles & flashers on the backs of their black buggies. Lead Acid batteries on a horse-drawn buggie? Where are they recharging those? Those clandestine diesel generators I expect.

38 posted on 02/15/2008 9:54:28 AM PST by Tallguy (Tagline is offline till something better comes along...)
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To: chuckles

Yeah, the firm from which our sewage enforcement officer comes is only prohibited from doing business within the township. ‘Course he has a nice little ping-pong game going on with the neighboring township enforcement officer, and so on...


39 posted on 02/15/2008 9:57:13 AM PST by Tallguy (Tagline is offline till something better comes along...)
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To: ThinkingBuddha

A guy I worked with some years ago bought a small farm. After a about a month he stopped showing up for work. When I saw him I ask why. As it turns out the farm he bought needed a new well drilled. The site of the new well just happened to be the site of an outhouse that had been removed and been covered over. The new well was drilled through the pit. He and his whole family came close to dying from the pollution.


40 posted on 02/15/2008 10:03:59 AM PST by lmailbvmbipfwedu
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