Politics & Government

South County Federation: Keep Horses at Meadowood During Renovation

Resolution approved Tuesday night says allowing animals to stay on-site is an "industry standard."

The South County Federation unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday that calls on the Bureau of Land Management to allow horses to remain at its barn at during its long-awaited renovation. 

The Federation, which represents 10,000 residents of southeast Fairfax County, unanimously passed the resolution, which will be sent to BLM as a comment on their Environmental Assessment of the structure. 

It is widely believed that three independently-owned businesses at the barn will fail if the horses are removed from the structure at Lorton's 

Find out what's happening in Lortonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Federation, which met at South County Secondary School for its monthly meeting Tuesday night, defended the barn in the resolution as an "important community recreation facility," asking BLM to modify the EA to allow all horses to remain on-site, "as is consistent with industry practice for barn repairs."

BLM has revealed no timeline for the renovation, but recently extended the public comment period on its Environmental Assessment of the Meadowood Barn from July 3 to July 24. The public was alerted of the extension on BLM's website, which for weeks suffered a glitch that kept people from commenting.

Find out what's happening in Lortonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Boarder Lynn Taylor is still having issues with the BLM site, she said at the meeting.

"The comment link is still broken," she told the Federation. "We have not been able to get it to work, and we are having to use the email that they provided. They have never responded to me and we've sent several emails to them. We can't get it to work using four different servers."   

BLM's 42-page environmental assessment report (pdf download) presents three options for the barn, all of which would take horses from the facility. 

  1. Renovate the existing barn on its current footprint, while closing the facility to the horses and horse related businesses on the property during the renovation.
  2. Immediately close and demolish the structure.
  3. Leave the structure as is, but close the horse related businesses on the property.

In its resolution, the federation noted there were few places to board horses in Fairfax County. "It is unlikely that all boarding horses will be able to relocate in Mason Neck or even in Fairfax County and unclear if boarding operations would ever resume at Meadowood," it read.

It also asked that BLM "scale back the scope of the repairs to encompass those deferred maintenance repairs that are necessary and appropriate for the safety and soundness of the Meadowood barn such as the replacement of the roof, electrical wiring, certain support beams and plumbing, but forego the new design features set forth in the Report."

The Federation called on Sup. Gerry Hyland (Mount Vernon) and U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-8th) to continue encouraging BLM to keep the horses at Meadowood. Moran, who is Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, he would cut BLM's budget unless the EA was modified. 

"You've may have heard our Congressman's thoughts on the issue," Hyland said at the Federation meeting. "It's a strong message to BLM, and the message should be strong… We're pressing forward with BLM and I hope that we get to the end sooner rather than later."

Comments on the Environmental Assessment may be submitted:


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