A long-running religious freedom case has come full circle, with a court ruling this week that a deeply conservative Amish community in Minnesota cannot be threatened with the loss of homes if its members don't install septic systems to dispose of their bath, laundry and dish water. Jul 13, 2023
The state Court of Appeals on Monday found that members of the Swartzentruber Amish community in southeastern Minnesota don't need to install septic systems to dispose of "gray water," which is dirty water left from dishwashing, laundry, bathing, and other tasks not involving toilet waste. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed court rulings that had required the group to install septic tanks.
The Swartzentruber Amish do not have modern running water in their homes. Water arrives through a single line and is either pumped by hand or delivered by gravity from an external cistern.
They also offered an alternative used in more than a dozen other states that would allow them to funnel gray water from their homes by pipes to earthen basins filled with wood chips to filter solids and grease from the water as it drains, similar to how a septic system would work.
But the courts also found that septic systems - not mulch basins - would be the least-restrictive means for the Amish families to meet the government's interest in protecting public health and the environment.
The case made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021, which found that Minnesota courts overstepped. It said the burden was on the government to prove that the mulch basins wouldn't work, not on the Amish to show they would. And it sent the case back to the Minnesota courts for reconsideration. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that if "the government can achieve its interests in a manner that does not burden religion, it must do so."
But the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency refused, and filed an administrative enforcement action against 23 Amish families in Fillmore County, threatening criminal penalties, civil fines and even to force them from their homes if they didn't comply.
exactly!!!!
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/wq-wwists1-65.pdf
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/land-application-of-biosolids
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/mn-court-of-appeals/114579510.html
While we appreciate the unique environmental issues posed by the karst topography of Fillmore County, we note that the same three-foot-separation requirement applies to privies, which are routinely approved for the Swartzentruber Amish and others. See Minn. R. 7080.2150, .2280 (2021).
Fascinating.
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