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Maryland's Department of Agriculture can't just cut to the chase. After telling homeowners to treat their gardens and lawns like commercial farmers do, there's the hard truth.

And perhaps the boldest suggestion made today -- get rid of your lawn, or at least consider making it smaller. Trees and shrubs capture more carbon than grass, and they need less maintenance and fertilizer than a traditional turf lawn.

«In so many cases people are trying to grow turf where it doesn't grow well,» causing fertilizer overuse and pollution, Traunfeld said.

The backyard conservation tips being pitched by the Department Agriculture won't directly help farmers. But they could lead to water-quality improvements that help everybody, officials said.

«All of these small yards, put together, done properly, will have a huge effect on the Chesapeake Bay,» Hance said.

The fact that statistics rate homeowners as egregious a cabal of polluters as commercial farmers says a lot about the consequences of peer pressure in suburban America.

State environmental officials worry about the condition of the Chesapeake Bay. Or, is that the crabbing lobby? Anyway, more crabs, less vegetables, all make a Marylander smelly, healthy, and broke.

Allstate Corp. in Maryland is acting responsibly, and Maryland consumers just don't like that:

Insurance companies are retreating from coasts after a series of devastating storms in recent years, including Hurricane Katrina, which swamped Louisiana and Mississippi. Risk modelers, who forecast natural disasters for the insurance industry, have updated their methods to take into account higher sea temperatures.

Allstate, which implemented its policy in June, submitted modeling data in the regulatory case showing that several hurricanes making landfall in Worcester County, Virginia and Delaware could cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in Maryland.

Insurers also say that development and higher property values along coasts have increased their exposure to disaster losses. Allstate and other companies say they limit their liability in catastrophe-prone areas to remain financially healthy enough to pay the claims of current customers.

"It has always been our intent to manage catastrophe exposure in a way that avoids disrupting the Maryland insurance market while maintaining our ability to protect our policyholders from a position of financial strength," Allstate spokesman Debbie Pickford said in a statement.

The Katrina debacle showcased a situation where flood insurance was subsidized and not mandatory. yet smaller insurers took an awful beating. Raising rates to reflect the actual risk of living in marginal areas and eliminating the cozy relationship between state agencies and insurers, to make insurance mandatory, is a sane idea.