Please help us, Spokane

Because we in Kootenai County are quite helpless and ofttimes clueless, we appreciate our enlightened neighbors to the west watching out for us.

Take our most precious resource, water. Over a period of decades the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer's very name has changed, even though we're certain this has everything to do with silly language and nothing to do with disputes over who actually owns the stuff.

Research the region's sole source of drinking water for more than 400,000 people. In historical contexts you will find Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer; then, later, it's the Rathdrum Prairie - Spokane Valley Aquifer; then, later still, it somehow became the Spokane Valley - Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. So that we may all dispense with unnecessary and misleading verbiage about the huge body of water that originates at the southern end of Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho, it's now being called the Spokane Aquifer (see www.spokaneaquifer.org).

It's not just the volume of water, either. Our neighbors are helping us with our water quality, too. At a cost of untold millions on this side of the state line and virtually nothing on theirs, they're trying to give us the most stringent water quality standards in the nation for the Spokane River - standards that they can't match. When it comes to water sources here that flow there, clearly, we don't know what's good for us, so we appreciate the help.

While they're assisting us with our water needs, they're also hoping to help us with economic development at a time when jobs are at a historic premium. According to a headline in the most recent issue of Spokane Journal of Business, "Spokane, Kootenai joint 'statistical area' could boost Spokane."

Oops - sorry. Honest mistake. The headline actually says, "Spokane, Kootenai joint 'statistical area' could boost region."

This latest testament to neighborliness is similar to one of a decade ago. Through efforts to muster federal support for a combined statistical area, our Washington neighbors then and again now want our populations to be pooled so our region would comprise the 85th largest statistical area in the nation. Spokane County and its 463,000 denizens rank 106th. Kootenai County is virtually insignificant at No. 277 with a mere 137,000 mostly backward people.

The benefit of speaking in one bigger, louder voice, they tell us, is that our region will then attract more jobs and maybe even more money from the pockets of other hard-working taxpayers. Just under a decade ago, paranoid sentimentalists from Kootenai County killed the idea. Too many Idahoans thought Kootenai County could stand just fine on its own without the generous offer of even greater support from our Washington neighbors. They saw Kootenai County thriving and Spokane County floundering, and somehow used that to justify their weak arguments.

In fairness, for those few who might protest this latest stroke of benevolence from the west, you may contact your city, state and federal leaders and tell them you oppose the statistical change becoming automatic depending upon results of the 2010 Census. But be warned: One of these days, after repeatedly trying to help, Spokane might decide to leave you alone.