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.