Of course, any kind of setback requirement would be a change from what exists today.  There is no setback rule right now -- and no permitting of poultry feeding businesses.  So right now, putting a pile like the one pictured above 50 feet from a ditch is perfectly legal.  And keeping it outside, in the rain, for as long as you'd like is also legal. 

There are some poultry farmers, and officials at the Maryland Department of Agriculture, who argue that storing piles of manure outside for long periods of time isn't a problem. They say the  manure crusts over, and rainwater washes right off.  But that raises the question: If outdoor storage is fine, then why are taxpayers being asked to pay millions of dollars to help farmers build sheds to contain chicken manure?  If the sheds aren't necessary -- why are we paying for them?

There are two ironies about the waste pile that I photographed on Egypt Road.  No. 1:  Rain could certainly wash this pile into the Little Blackwater River.  But wouldn't the runoff be even worse if you spread the pile out?  That's exactly what the farmer is about to do -- spread the waste over dozens of acres of land to plant soybeans.  Then when it rains, water will run across a large area of thinly-spread fertilizer. Some of the nutrients will be absorbed by corn and soybeans as they grow. But the rest of the fertilizer will seep down into the groundwater, where it will slowly ooze out into the Little Blackwater River.  Is that really better?

Irony No. 2: This property won't be farmland long.  It's owned by Egypt Road LLC and Thomas Land Group LLC, which are controlled by developer Duane Zentgraf. He is planning to build 675 homes on 326 acres of land.  Four years ago, Zentgraf wanted to build much more -- 3,200 homes on 1,072 acres in a huge golf resort and housing development called Blackwater Resort.  But then he was sued by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and neighbors who were concerned about suburban sprawl harming the nearby Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.  And the day before former Gov. Robert Ehrlich lost re-election in November 2006, his administration announced that it would spend more than $10 million to preserve two thirds of the land. That preserved the east side of Egypt Road from development, but not the west side (where I took my picture of the chicken manure heap). This land is still slated for development...but in the meantime, it's being leased out to a local farmer (as it has been for years).

So what would be worse for the Chesapeake Bay?  Piles of manure like this being washed every spring into the Little Blackwater River?  Or 675 homes sprouting up on this farmland?

I tracked down Chip Fleming, the farmer leasing the land who put the manure pile there along Egypt Road, and he was frustrated by some of my questions.  He said none of the manure runs off into the ditch, because he maintains strips of plants along waterways. (I saw grass and weeds between the pile and the ditch).  "There is no runoff there," Fleming said. "People think it runs right off into the ditches and right into the river....But the plants soak up the nutrients before it gets there."

Fleming said he is not a poultry farmer, so Maryland's new proposed poultry regulations would not affect him.  He grows soybeans.  And he said he got the manure from other local farmers, who raise chickens and needed to get rid of it.  Fleming said the manure pile only sat there (where I photographed it) about a week, before he spread it all on his fields. "People like to blame the farmer, but nobody has any problems eating chicken.  I guess they have to blame someone."

Ken Staver, a researcher at the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, said it's a complex question whether farmland or development is worse for the Chesapeake Bay.  He said there's a wide range of types of agriculture, good and bad -- and a wide range of development.  But he said that, in general, historically, developed areas tend to have worse water quality.  "It's hard for development to really improve the water quality compared to farmland," Staver said.  "You don't see developed watersheds that seem healthy."

Dru Schmidt Perkins, director of an anti-sprawl organization called 1000 Friends of Maryland,  said development along Egypt Road would be worse than the manure. That's because the blacktop and buildings would be permanent -- while farmland can always revert back to forests and wetlands.

"Paving over that land will have profound and permanent impacts, year after year after year," said Schmidt Perkins.  "Whereas, one load of manure should have very little impact if it's absorbed by the plants and not overapplied. It's a serious but temporary problem."

Perkins said it's not just a matter of nitrogen running off of the land into the waterways.  Once 10 percent of a watershed is covered in pavement, the water temperatures and velocities go up so much "it kills the watershed...all the critters in the water die."

More development would mean blacktop and lawns, which rain water would flush across, washing gasoline and lawn fertilizer into the Little Blackwater River. Plus, there would be hundreds of cars driving back and forth every day, with people tossing garbage out the windows (as they always do) and exhaust wafting into the air.

But Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, a toxicologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the poultry manure is worse than suburban style development.  It's not just nitrogen pollution than runs off of farmland and suburban lawns, she said.  The bigger problem is the bacteria and pathogens in poultry waste, which escape into the local drinking water supplies and streams.  She noted that if hundreds of suburban houses were built on Egypt Road, they would at least be required to treat their sewage -- instead of just dumping it onto the ground. She said poultry manure has at least as much bacteria as human sewage.

“There’s no question the farms would be worse,” said Dr. Silbergeld.  By comparison, in a suburban development, “You can’t just flush your toilets out into the environment.”

The greatest risk to the public, she said, is from drug-resistant bacteria in the poultry waste.  The poultry companies routinely feed the chickens antibiotics to make them grow plumper and to prevent disease. But this practice breeds bacteria that is immune to the drugs -- and when people get infected with these germs, the infections are very hard to cure. The drugs -- crucial in saving lives in hospitals -- eventually become useless.

Lance Price, a microbiologist at Johns Hopkins and colleague of Dr. Silbergeld's, recently co-authored a study with her that was published in Environmental Health Perspectives. The study found that poultry workers in the Delmarva peninsula were 32 times more likely to carry drug-resistant e-coli bacteria than the general public. "Colonization with antimicrobial resistant ecoli may also pose a health risk to poultry workers families and community contacts," Price and Silbergeld wrote.

Silbergeld said chicken waste should be treated to kill bacteria, just as human waste is treated.  Maryland should require treatment of chicken manure in the permits that it is proposing to issue to poultry growers, she said. "The fundamental problem is we have no treatment of that waste, none," Silbergeld said.

Theoretically, this land along Egypt Road south of Cambridge would best serve the Chesapeake Bay if the owner didn't build anything -- and stopped farming -- and allowed the property to revert to forests.

But then, if the land was generating zero revenue, how would the owner pay his taxes and loans on the property?  Maybe he could turn it into a hunting preserve. Or he could sell it to the nearby Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. That, of course, would require taxpayers to foot the bill.  People would have to ask themselves: would it be worth the investment to protect the land and the Chesapeake Bay... and public health?