Worcester County has gone to court to reverse its own Board of Zoning Appeals. County Attorney Roscoe Leslie filed a one-page petition for judicial review on September 14, according to OC Today-Dispatch. That kind of petition asks a judge to weigh whether a local board's decision should stand. The filing targets an August 13 approval letting Earth Funeral spread natural organic reduction soil on a roughly 14-acre farm on Scotty Road near Snow Hill. Commissioner Ted Elder, the board's president, told OC Today-Dispatch the commissioners authorized the appeal in a closed session on September 1. Elder said the appeal could not go forward without backing from at least four of the county's seven commissioners.
By the Numbers
Natural organic reduction, or NOR, is the contained, accelerated conversion of human remains into soil. Maryland's Green Death Care Options Act, Chapter 600 of 2024, made the process legal effective October 1, 2024. Under Health-General § 5-514, soil remains may not be used to grow food for consumption by humans or livestock, sold to a third party, or worked into compost offered for sale. A violation is a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine. The statute says nothing about where or how bulk soil may be applied to fields. That gap pushed the question into county zoning.
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On August 13, the Board of Zoning Appeals granted Case No. 26-57, a special exception sought by attorney Hugh Cropper IV on the Scotty Road property of Horace L Jr. and Quinna Marshall, identified as Tax Map 62, Parcel 13, the official minutes show. A special exception allows a use when the board finds it of the same general character as uses already permitted in the district, in this case A-1 agricultural. The vote was 4-2, with members Bowen and Fykes opposed. Conditions included no crops for human consumption on the application area and cover crops on acreage awaiting application. The board also required a 50-foot setback from property lines and the road, with twice-yearly professional inspections reported to the county. Members discussed an application rate of 15 to 30 cubic yards per acre, pending a nutrient management plan.
The lead opponent at the hearing was Roger L. Richardson, 92, a grain farmer who served as Maryland Secretary of Agriculture from 2007 to 2009, per the Maryland Manual On-Line. The official minutes list him among the opposing witnesses. Richardson told the board he has farmed for 60 years and operates roughly 4,000 acres. He argued the project would permanently keep productive farmland from growing food, as reported by OC Today-Dispatch.
“"I didn't particularly like spreading chicken manure, and God knows I'm not gonna spread people."”
Cropper said he has never seen the county commissioners appeal a Board of Zoning Appeals decision in almost 38 years of practicing land-use law, per OC Today-Dispatch. He estimated six to nine months before the case reaches a courtroom. The appeal does not automatically halt the approval, he said, so the special exception stands while the case proceeds. He also noted the county planning commission reviewed the proposal a month before the hearing and offered no comments.
Elder's objections were blunter. "I just don't feel that it's right," he told OC Today-Dispatch, asking: "What's next, atomic waste?" He also questioned hauling the material roughly 130 miles from Howard County. That is where Earth Funeral, based in Seattle, opened its first East Coast facility in May 2026: 37,000 square feet in Elkridge with capacity for up to 2,000 remains per year, per the company's site and WBAL. Earth Funeral plans to use the soil to grow a forest on the property, per the Baltimore Sun. The purchase is still pending, and the owners' contract to sell was contingent on zoning approval, per OC Today-Dispatch.
The county's petition identifies the zoning case and asks the court to reverse the board. Worcester County Circuit Court now holds the case; a judge there will review the evidence and testimony the zoning board heard rather than take new evidence, with written arguments from both sides first, Cropper told the Baltimore Sun. No legal grounds appear in the filing, per OC Today-Dispatch and the Baltimore Sun. Because the 2024 statute is silent on field application, each Maryland county that faces an NOR proposal has to settle the question through its own zoning code. Worcester's commissioners chose a courtroom over their board's answer. Obitley mapped where natural organic reduction soil can legally go across the fourteen legalization states on October 1.
What to watch: whether the contingent sale closes before any ruling, and what legal grounds the county advances in court. "I rarely say this, but I feel absolutely confident that we will win the appeal," Cropper told OC Today-Dispatch. The county's reasons, absent from the petition so far, will surface in filings ahead of a courtroom Cropper does not expect for six to nine months.
What This Means for You
*Sources: Worcester County Board of Zoning Appeals minutes, August 13, 2026; OC Today-Dispatch, September 18, 2026; The Baltimore Sun (AP), September 18, 2026; OC Today-Dispatch, August 21, 2026; Md. Code, Health-General § 5-514 (Ch. 600, Laws of Maryland 2024); earthfuneral.com; WBAL-TV, May 20, 2026; Maryland Manual On-Line*
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