Bidding adieu to our dear, late Aquifer
Eulogy for the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer: May 4, 2008.
Welcome to all gathered here on the banks of the Spokane River near the T.J. Meenach Bridge. Today, we bid goodbye to Aquifer. As she lay dying, Aquifer suggested this spot for her memorial service. This was one of the few places shy Aquifer danced on the surface, disguised as a mountain stream.
Aquifer officially passed away yesterday, when the wells that she once filled with drinking water were sealed off forever. Cause of death: extreme contamination. Aquifer, however, had been on life support for three years, following the reopening of BNSF Railway Co.’s refueling depot near Hauser, Idaho, located directly above Aquifer.
Aquifer was born during the Earth’s last Ice Age, between 12,000 and 18,000 years ago. Her birth was a geological marvel; some call it a miracle. Water had dammed up in Glacial Lake Missoula, behind a wall of ice, and as the ice dam melted, multiple floods of biblical proportions raced through the land we now call the Inland Northwest.
These floods carved Aquifer into the earth; she spread herself out over more than 320 square miles, and unlike her extroverted sister, the Spokane River, Aquifer flowed slowly, deliberately and mostly beneath the surface, an introvert whose water was purified as it traveled over sand, gravel, rock.
When human beings arrived in the beautiful land, Aquifer offered her life-sustaining water as a gift to those who lived above her. She gave and never complained. She was honored in 1978 when the federal government declared her a “sole source” aquifer. She was certain this designation would protect her health.
She was wrong. People grew greedy. The region’s nearly 500,000 citizens turned on their taps and when Aquifer’s glorious water poured forth, year after year, they felt she would last forever. So they built homes with septic tanks above her. They built businesses that leaked oil, tar and other chemicals. They kept their faucets running as they brushed their teeth. They watered their lawns to distraction.
Then, in the late 1990s, the BNSF railroad folks came forward, hired a fancy public relations firm and touted the glories of a refueling depot above Aquifer. Railroad officials said things such as “This facility sets a new standard for fuel storage over the aquifer and will fully protect the area’s drinking water.”
Elected officials – and some editorial board writers from the region’s newspapers – believed that the depot would be good for the economy. And they said yes, go ahead BNSF, you build the depot that you assure us will never leak.
Aquifer felt dismay when, right from the get-go, she felt drops of leaking fuel upon her. She was relieved when the depot was closed down temporarily. She appreciated those who intervened on her behalf – the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, the Friends of the Aquifer, the Kootenai Environmental Alliance and all the prophets who said you don’t treat a living miracle like a garbage dump.
But three years ago, during the spring 2005 hearings on whether to reopen the depot, a BNSF attorney said that the holes remaining in the refueling depot liners were only the size of “pinpricks.” Aquifer groaned. Her fate was sealed, one leaky pinprick hole after another.
Ever gracious to the end, Aquifer worried about the future of the young protesters who showed up for her during the hearings. She realized they would soon be lining up at community water trucks for fresh drinking water, just like people in some Third World countries. She realized many of the young people would move elsewhere for jobs, because no economic viability exists in a community without safe drinking water.
Aquifer would have appreciated the tears shed for her here today. Her own fresh-water tears stopped flowing long ago, contaminated to the core. Now that she is gone forever, she will be forever missed.