Amish Refuse To Follow Sewage Disposal Code

In Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, members of the small Swartzentruber Amish community are at odds with county officials over handling of waste from two out houses at the community's school. Sunday's Mansfield (PA) News Journal reports that the Amish group has religious objections to complying with code requirements that the waste be collected in a holding tank and disposed of by a certified sewage hauler. Instead, the Amish group collects the waste in plastic buckets and dumps it on their fields. Andy Swartzentruber, on whose land the outhouses sit, and school elder Sam Yoder, have each been fined $500 for violating the state sewage disposal law. Yoder says that he will go to jail rather than abide by the sewage disposal requirements. The Cambria County Sewage Enforcement Agency and other officials are trying to work out a compromise with the religious group.