EDITORIAL: 'A' is for aquifer — and alarm
Funny how grunt work precedes glory.
And averts disaster.
As Press staff so vividly illustrated last Sunday in the top story, our most important resource — the aquifer that runs beneath our feet and provides our drinking water — is at serious risk.
No, sirens aren’t wailing and personnel in haz-mat outfits aren’t scuttling everywhere like white roaches. But at the rate North Idahoans are going, those aren’t disturbing “ifs” but “whens.”
Imagine, just for a moment, life in Post Falls, Hayden, Athol — everywhere in Kootenai County — if the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer failed to sufficiently recharge or was rendered by contaminants unsafe for any kind of consumption.
Presiding powerlessly over parched yards and brown golf courses would be the least of our concerns. Our homes wouldn’t be worth the dirt they’re built on. Jobs would dry up and blow away like October leaves in December winds.
The point of that article and today’s editorial isn’t to beat the drum of terror. There’s far too much fear-mongering in society already.
We’ve got a couple of choices going forward, one passive and one active:
1. Do nothing and hope Mother Nature keeps up her end of the bargain by replenishing the 370-mile aquifer with sufficient snow melt while humans accidentally don’t destroy the water source with sprawling construction and contamination and degradation;
2. Get off our collective duffs and work together sensibly but urgently to prioritize clean, abundant water for the half-million citizens who depend upon the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer in Kootenai County and Spokane area.
What does sensibly but urgently look like? Government and citizens working together.
County commissioners and city leaders should be actively aligning their respective comprehensive plans not just to protect the aquifer, but to ensure citizens understand and appreciate its impact on life here.
This could take the form of governments acquiring open space and preserving some it already owns to mitigate rampant sprawl. Hoping citizens will band together to tax themselves through a many-million-dollar bond for small chunks of land is highly unlikely no matter how much aquifer “education” takes place; other acquisition and donation methods should be prioritized.
Every water bill in print and digital forms should include easy-to-read FAQs about our aquifer and steps each of us can employ to protect this irreplaceable resource. The information campaign should be broad and persistent, engaging any civic-minded agency or entity that depends upon a healthy aquifer for its sustenance — which is every single one of them.
For many years focus has been on Lake Coeur d’Alene and contamination from a century of Silver Valley mining. Disaster with our aquifer, however, would be even more devastating. It’s time we recognize that and respond right now as if our lives here depend upon it, because they do.
Let the grunt work on a glorious cause begin.