No monopoly on horse manure
JOSEPH N. BELL
It isn’t often that a journalist finds himself personally involved in
a breaking news story. But when I read about the ongoing tiff between
the city of Newport Beach and the Back Bay Equestrians over how, if,
and why horse manure should be disposed of, there I was, right in the
middle. So I had to put aside an almost-completed column to take a
cut at the Santa Ana Heights Horse Manure Caper.
I would guess that about four times a year, I find it necessary to
shovel up horse droppings in the entrance to my driveway. If I don’t,
they get carried into my garage every time the car passes over them.
This is both visually and aesthetically unappealing. It might even be
unhealthy.
Every time I have to shovel manure, I must admit that I think
unkind thoughts about the people on the horses who leave the
droppings. These thoughts pass, more or less, as I take a longer
view. I acknowledge a deep bias against horses ever since I was
required to be a part of a U.S. Army horse-drawn field artillery unit
at the University of Missouri as an integral part of my education. On
my first exposure to a horse, I didn’t tighten the cinch properly, it
slipped around the horse’s belly when I tried to mount, and while I
lay on the ground beneath him, he relieved himself on me in an
ultimate show of contempt. My relations with horses have been
strained ever since.
But when I weigh this bias and the manure in my driveway against
the free-wheeling, laissez-faire atmosphere in Santa Ana Heights that
makes it possible for horses to behave in this manner, I soften. And
when I further realize that supporting a hard line on the manure
question might encourage the Newport Beach authorities to examine my
own eccentricities -- like leaving the garage door open all day, for
example -- I find myself in bed with the horses.
That may be occasionally uncomfortable, but the alternative might
well be worse. I am exceedingly wary of efforts from outsiders to
tidy up the environment around here. As President Lyndon Johnson once
poetically -- and illogically -- said: “If we don’t stop ‘em in
Vietnam, we’ll have to stop ‘em in Honolulu.” Or something like that.
This concern -- expressed before the annexation -- that Newport
Beach might try to reconstruct us in its image does not, however,
preclude some comments on the merits of the horse manure debate. As I
read the quotes in the Pilot news story, the basic argument is
biological rather than aesthetic. The Back Bay Equestrians are saying
we should be pleased to embrace the benign qualities of horse manure,
while the authorities are warning that horse droppings could muck up
our water quality. This is, perhaps, an oversimplification, but the
subject matter is pretty hard to intellectualize without making bad
jokes.
We are asked by the spokeswoman for the Equestrians to educate
ourselves -- along with city officials -- “on the environmental
benefits of horse manure.” These benefits, she explained to the Pilot
reporter, don’t pose the same risks to human health as do other
animal droppings because horses eat a lot of hay, which we are told
produces “eco-friendly” manure.
All this is beyond my biological grasp, but in fairness, I must
point out that horse manure wasn’t very healthy for my late dachshund
friend and companion, Coco. Several years ago when our friends from
France, Howard and Francoise Appel, were visiting, one of our
neighborhood horses left us a sizable pile of droppings. Howard, who
farms a backyard patch at his home in Provence, was ecstatic and
regaled us at dinner with all the fine attributes of horse manure.
Then, early the next morning, he collected a bag full of manure from
the deposit in front of our house and presented it proudly to my wife
for her flowerbeds. Anxious to please our guests, she distributed it
generously. Then, the Appels went back to France.
That’s when Coco got mysteriously sick. The vets couldn’t find
anything wrong with her except a bellyache, which seemed strange
since she wasn’t eating anything. She would disappear for long spells
in our capacious backyard when we put her outside, then come back and
throw up. I finally followed her and found Coco in a bed of manure,
eating with gusto. So my wife and I spent several hours tracking down
and digging up manure while Coco watched, full of the knowledge she
had stashes we hadn’t yet found. That took several more days. Then
she got well.
Now I can’t prove it was the manure that made Coco sick, but even
a dedicated equestrian would have to find this evidence persuasive.
I’m sure the equestrians would also contend that Coco’s bout with
manure has little relevance to the issue now vexing them: multiple
signs along their trails telling them that fines of up to $100 --
under a Newport Beach animal waste ordinance -- will be levied
against equestrians who don’t clean up after their horses.
These signs -- which the Back Bay Equestrians not surprisingly
find “unfriendly” -- are accompanied by trash cans, complete with
shovels, along horse trails. There are none, to my knowledge, along
driveways. Apparently, the authorities don’t consider driveway manure
a threat to our water.
City officials and the Back Bay Equestrians are going to meet over
the next few weeks to resolve this problem. I’m going to watch at a
distance for the moment while I try to figure out if this is an issue
on which all of us in Santa Ana Heights should hang together.
Meanwhile, it seems ironic and appropriate to me to be debating
the subject of horse manure in an election year.
* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column
appears Thursdays.
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