A plan submitted to help minimise environmental damage in the Chesapeake Bay area has delayed the cap on poultry manure spreading restrictions by one year.

Maryland governor Larry Hogan’s proposal, submitted last Monday, included the measure in an attempt to limit both environmental damage and regulatory burdens on farmers.

According to the National Chicken Council, the submission would be tough on phosphorous limits – the Phosphorous Management Tool.

This would particularly involve farms near water courses or bodies of water and would mean an “immediate ban” on fields testing high for phosphorous.

“Protecting the bay is a shared responsibility and placing disproportionate burden on any one region or any group is simply unfair,” said Mr Hogan last week.

“Like everyone else, I want to clean up the bay, but I reject the idea that we must destroy a way of live on the Eastern Shore in order to make that happen.”