A health department is seeking to force six Amish families in Gladwin County to install septic tanks, but an attorney says that would violate Amish beliefs.
The Central Michigan District Health Department in Mt. Pleasant wants to bring the families' properties in line with health codes.
Grand Rapids attorney Howard Van Den Heuvel, who represents the families, said the health department believes there's a problem with a small amount of water that drains from each home's kitchen sink and wash house.
The water drains onto a tile in the yard, then seeps into the ground.
"The issue has become preserving their lifestyle," Van Den Heuvel told the Detroit Free Press for a Thursday story. "That's really a precious thing."
The Amish families joined forces this week with a nonprofit civil liberties group based at the University of Virginia's law school. They filed a petition asking Gladwin County's 55th Circuit Court to intervene on behalf of the farmers.
Van Den Heuvel said the water that enters the ground -- which the health department wants collected in 1,300-gallon septic tanks -- is safe.
"They use organic soap that they make themselves," he said. "This is not a source of pollution. In places like Arizona, where it's really dry, they use this kind of water on their gardens."
For hundreds of years, Amish farmers have lived without modern conveniences like electricity, indoor bathrooms and septic tanks.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 Amish people live in Michigan, according to the Rutherford Institute, the nonprofit legal advocacy group that has taken the case of Amos Beechy, Alvin Slabaugh, Daniel and John Mast, Amos Weaver and other Amish persons.
"It's a classic freedom of religion case," said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute. "They're living the same way they lived in 1525. They believe it's an affront to their religion to modernize."
A hydro-geologist was hired by the families to look for alternatives. The scientist recommended that they install 300-pound tanks that they could build themselves. The smaller tanks would not require electric pumps, as the larger tanks might, Van Den Heuvel said.
But the health authorities still want to see the larger tanks installed.
Whitehead said the case will be bolstered by a landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision: Wisconsin v. Yoder. In that case, the court ruled that Wisconsin had no right to force Amish children to attend school beyond the eighth grade because that would have conflicted with Amish beliefs.