SOUTH JORDAN — Things have been quiet for a while at the Salt Lake County Equestrian Park — just in time for another controversy.
The latest scandal, however, isn't on the scale of the condemnatory county fine arts division audit in 2001 or an employee embezzling more than $50,000 in 2003. No, this one has to do with piles of wood shavings.
Although, judging by the uproar it has caused, it might as well be on the scale of those others.
Citing large, unsightly and occasionally unhealthy piles of loose wood shavings adorning the grounds around the horse barns, Equestrian Park managers have banned the approximately 150 people who keep their horses there ("boarders") from buying wood shavings in bulk — generally by the truckload — unless they conform to stringent requirements.
Most of the boarders will have to switch to buying shavings in more expensive, but neater, 12-cubic-foot bags.
"We just can't believe they're doing this," said boarder Cynthia Montana, who keeps three horses at the park. "They say it's for aesthetics, but we're all laughing — it's got to be something else."
Director of park operations Wayne Johnson, however, says aesthetics is exactly the reason.
"There are piles lying around all over the place," he said. "Down around the A/B barn area it looks like a war zone. People cover (the pile) with a tarp then put tires to hold it down, and the Board of Health gets worried because they collect standing water. It's unsightly and in some cases a code violation, and we just can't seem to stop folks from doing it."
Horse owners line their stalls with wood shavings to keep them clean, replacing the shavings generally two or three times a week. That's a lot of shavings, and if you're paying $7 a bag (the going rate at the park), with a stall taking up about three bags at a time, the money starts adding up.
Some boarders have been able to get the bulk shavings for nothing, or next to nothing, from lumber concerns or cabinet-making companies or the like. Some also complain that the bag shavings are inferior to the ones they can get in bulk. And they have made their voices heard.
Park managers sent out a letter two weeks ago outlining the new requirements and experienced an immediate backlash. A meeting has been scheduled Monday to hear boarders' concerns and, Johnson says, listen to alternatives.
"We're open to suggestions," he said. "It's complicated . . . but the whole concept is to clean up the park and make it look better."
Park managers considered building a storage facility to house bulk shavings for boarders' use, but decided the administration and the cost (more than $100,000) were too onerous. Instead, they'll be storing bag shavings in the park's rabbit barn.
And when the county fair — complete with rabbits — moves in next summer, well, managers will just have to find another home for the shavings. Probably the hay barn.
Johnson might be tempted to lament his fate over shaving-gate, but all he has to do is think of what might have been.
"It's nice that it's not somebody cooking the books or 'this is what the mayor's doing,' " he said.
E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com