Lenawee County settles lawsuits against Amish community over outdoor toilets

ADRIAN — Lenawee County settled several lawsuits Wednesday against the county’s Amish community over their refusal to install septic systems due to their religious obligations.

If successful, the lawsuits would have resulted in forcing the families to pay for the demolition of their own homes and place liens on their properties.

“In effect, the lawsuits were an attempt to banish an entire religious community from Lenawee County,” American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan senior staff attorney Phil Mayor wrote in a December 2022 article.

In its settlement, Lenawee County has agreed to pay $425,000 in attorney fees. Under the agreement, the Amish will still have to pay a one-time $350 variance fee on each parcel owned and a $75 annual variance renewal fee each year on each parcel; install a vault toilet with a 300-gallon tank on each parcel and pay the county’s $410 fee for a vault toilet and permit; and test the septage it spreads each time for agricultural purposes with pH strips and report the results to the county health department among other reporting and permit requirements.

“We never sought conflict with Lenawee County, and we are very thankful and blessed that the lawyers and other English folks intervened to help defend our constitutional rights and our traditional way of life," a member of the Lenawee County’s Old Order Amish community, speaking on behalf of the whole community, said in a news release issued by the ACLU of Michigan. "We look forward to being able to practice our faith free of interference from the government and to live in harmony with nature and our neighbors, just as our ancestors did.  We are eager to put this legal ordeal behind us.”

The conflict began in 2015, when members of a growing Amish community in Hillsdale County began moving to Lenawee County and continued to follow Old Order Amish practices such as using outdoor toilets and then treating the waste with lime before using it to fertilize pastures. It was not used on fields where food is grown for human consumption.

“It is a safe, sustainable, and scientifically sound agricultural method,” Mayor wrote.

Lenawee County would not allow it, Mayor wrote, "even though county officials admitted under oath they had no evidence of anyone ever being harmed by these families’ adherence to religious practices that have been in place for generations. Those same officials acknowledged being aware that a much larger community of Amish with similar practices in Hillsdale County has been able to live there harmoniously for decades."

In 2019, Lenawee County simultaneously filed lawsuits against every Amish family in the county.

The ACLU and the law firms Wright & Schulte LLC and Cooper, Bender & Bender helped the Amish families file counterclaims against the Lenawee County Health Department for violation of their constitutional and civil rights. They sought to have the lawsuits dismissed and an injunction ordered to allow the Amish to remain on their farms and free to practice their religion.

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“Throughout its interactions with the Amish, the county has been unwilling to even try to understand the Amish faith, going so far as to argue that the Amish devotion to living simply in harmony with the land is just a secular lifestyle choice rather than a religious commitment,” Mayor wrote. “One of the points county officials apparently fail to grasp is that not all Amish sects adhere to the exact same religious practices. The Amish community in Lenawee County is especially strict, adhering to their ‘old order’ religious way of life by using water from wells and carrying it by bucket into their house, using outhouses instead of flush toilets, and not using electricity, cell phones, or automobiles.”

The U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in favor of the Amish position July 2, 2021, in a case similar to the Lenawee County case. In Mast v Fillmore Co, Minn, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the court’s opinion based on the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Acts.

In his opinion, Gorsuch wrote, “In this long-running litigation, officials in Fillmore County, Minnesota have insisted that the Amish must adopt certain modern technologies or risk jail, fines, and even losing their farms.”

At issue in the Minnesota case was a dispute about plumbing, specifically the disposal of gray water — water used in dishwashing, laundry, and similar uses. The Amish in the case did not have running water in their homes. The Amish’s water arrives through a single line and is either pumped by hand or delivered by gravity from an external cistern.

Fillmore County adopted an ordinance requiring most homes to have a modern septic system for the disposal of gray water. In response, the county’s Amish community submitted a letter explaining that their religion forbids the use of such technology and “asking in the name of our Lord to be exempt” from the new rule.

Over the course of the administrative and legal proceedings in that case, the Amish proposed treating their gray water in large earthen basins filled with wood chips that filter water as it drains, then the county sought an order declaring the Amish's homes uninhabitable and even tried to interpret the Bible for the Amish arguing that the Bible commands the Amish to submit to “secular authority.”

In his opinion, Gorsuch wrote, “Apparently, this was part of an effort to amass ‘evidence’ to ‘attack the sincerity of (the Amish’s) religious beliefs.’”

Gorsuch explained the basis of the U.S. Supreme Court decision this way: ''In this country, neither the Amish nor anyone else should have to choose between their farms and their faith.”

More: Attorneys make arguments in lawsuits over Amish outhouses, waste

Lenawee County Commissioner Kevon Martis, R-Riga Twp., said, had he been on the commission when the action against the Amish started, he would have opposed it. He said the actions of the approximate 150 people in the county's Amish community, compared to the county's overall population of 99,000, would have a small effect on the county's public health, and the amount the county will be paying to cover the Amish community's legal fees could have been spent in other ways, such as preventing sewer overflows during heavy rain storms.

"I know there are better places to direct our public health dollars and the $425,000.00 the taxpayers are paying to end this litigation could have made a meaningful difference for much larger public health risks than those the Amish were alleged to have been causing," Martis said. "And as often as the ACLU and I differ politically, in this case I agree with them: religious freedom is a fundamental constitutional right and I will work hard to protect the religious liberties of all our folks including our Amish neighbors."

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Lenawee County settles lawsuits against Amish community