Take two underfunded, understaffed, demoralized state agencies. Throw them together in a leaky boat surrounded by a sea of red ink. Then forget about them.

It's not a pretty picture.

Yet, the Ehrlich transition team is kicking around the idea of doing that very thing: merging the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Environment.

Maybe it's a trial balloon to see how upset the left and right of the resources and environment crowd get. And maybe, somewhere down the road, a merger might be a good thing.

But this is hardly the right time. Maryland has a new governor, new House speaker, new House and Senate committee chairmen. That alone is going to slow things down a tad until everyone finds his placard and figures out which one's the escargot fork.

The legislature has just three months - a blink of an eye in Annapolis - to balance the budget and debate slot machines.

On top of that, you're going to ask lawmakers to have a serious discussion about dissolving the two state agencies charged with protecting the Chesapeake Bay?

Let's hope not.

The Ehrlich transition team says the merger would save $30 million - a drop in the bucket for a state looking for $1.7 billion. And where the heck did that number come from?

A little more than a decade ago, Gov. William Donald Schaefer appointed the Butta Commission to look at ways to streamline government and make it more efficient.

The commission considered and rejected a proposal to consolidate DNR with Environment and Agriculture, concluding that each department has a distinct mission and that combining the agencies could lead to regulatory conflicts of interest.

However, the commission did recommend 115 cost savings measures that totaled $151 million. Are we to believe that combining two tiny agencies that spend 1.5 percent of the $21.6 billion state budget is going to save $30 million?

I ran those figures past several state numbers crunchers, who for reasons of job security asked not to be named. The $30 million savings seemed optimistic to them.

Then I called outgoing DNR Secretary Chuck Fox, who called the figure "fantasyland."

"Thirty million is more than 10 percent of our two budgets. Unless you cut programs, you'd be lucky to save one-half of 1 percent," Fox said. "There's virtually no cost savings merging these two departments, and there could be some costs involved. There's only one area of overlap and no indication of duplication of efforts."

A major cost is the expense of putting the two halves of the new agency in the same neighborhood. DNR is based in Annapolis in a building just renovated to include a day-care center for state employees. MDE recently signed a lease for space in Baltimore.

Fox disagreed with Ehrlich transition team assertions that a merger would end duplication of effort. The only overlap, he said, is in the area of water quality, where MDE sets policy and approves clean-up plans and DNR does the testing.

"DNR is an unbiased truth squad of whether that [MDE] policy is doing its job," Fox said. "It's a healthy tension."

He agreed with the suggestion that a more subtle loss would come at Ehrlich cabinet meetings, where two voices for the environment would be cut in half. "That actually can be a big deal given the nature of the issues. You can only take so many tough issues to the governor. It's better when you can have two secretaries to deliver tough messages."

Speaking of messages, perhaps the most disturbing one is being conveyed by Lt. Gov.-elect Michael Steele, who told The Washington Post that a merger "is something we feel very strongly about" because it has "upside potential and synergies" for the state.

Boys and girls, be afraid, be very afraid of anyone who uses the word "synergies."

And never forget that on election night Steele promised that "farmers and watermen" would no longer have to worry under an Ehrlich administration. It's a curious thing to include in a short victory speech, but an unsettling one if you care about the bay, about fertilizer runoff and about commercial overfishing.

One influential member of the transition team, and a man who would like to head DNR, said there's no reason to worry.

Dr. Ron Franks, a former Republican delegate and U.S. Senate candidate, said the proposal will have to pass two critical hurdles.

"In the beginning, you have to ask yourself, 'Do you lose services?' and 'Are you achieving some level of financial benefit?' " he said. "If the answers are yes to both of those things, you can move ahead. But you don't do it just to do it."

Franks, a hunter and angler who owns a fly fishing shop in Grasonville, has met with a number of outdoors interests in recent weeks about his interest in heading DNR. The Coastal Conservation Association sent a letter supporting him to the governor-elect.

"I have an interest [in the job] and I have a passion for all things DNR stands for," he said. "But I would be happy being a dentist and running a fly fishing shop."

He may want to stay on the other side of the bay if the administration insists on pushing a merger and a legislature desperate to find savings rams it through. At that point, the best we can wish for is that lawmakers approve the legislation establishing the agency (and take a $30 million savings on paper) pending a more complete game plan from Ehrlich the following year.

Luckily, the last time government tried a merger, it failed.

In 1993, then-House Speaker Clayton Mitchell drafted a bill to combine natural resources and agriculture into the Department of Land and Water Resources.

"We got blown out of the water," recalled Bill Miles, Mitchell's legislative aide who's now an Annapolis lobbyist. "It never got out of the House."

Let's hope this new attempt doesn't make it out of the cellar.