Kootenai County residents were in a surly mood earlier this year when they booted two county commissioners.

The incumbents were targets for voter frustration with rapid growth and high new property assessments. Earlier in the year, Coeur d’Alene School District patrons showed their disgust with higher property taxes when they solidly rejected their first school bond or levy in years.

Now, voters are being asked to OK a protection district for the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, a move that would cost affected households $6 per year and businesses $12 per year. Before voters react in a knee-jerk fashion, they should ask themselves whether they drink water. They do, of course. If they’re like Spokane County residents, they’ll also answer in the affirmative to the question: Do you appreciate the pristine water of the region’s aquifer?

They should vote yes on the ballot proposal to form an aquifer district and raise roughly $300,000 annually for pollution protection and monitoring programs. It would be foolish not to approve the measure, with outside revenue sources drying up and rapid growth creating daily new threats to the region’s sole source of drinking water. At a cost of 50 cents per month, the aquifer protection district is the best bargain on 2006 Kootenai County ballots.

Still, Idaho state Rep. Bob Nonini, chief proponent behind legislation allowing the county to form an aquifer district, is worried surly voters may view the measure as another tax. Rejection by voters would be devastating because Idaho plans to quit funding aquifer protection measures. It’s possible, Nonini told The Spokesman-Review, that there would be no monitoring or regulation of the hundreds of chemical- and petroleum-using businesses above the aquifer.

For years, the region took for granted the large underground river that provides its drinking water. The first intensive study of it began in 1977. In the 1970s, the Panhandle Health District angered developers by limiting the number of septic systems built over the aquifer to one per 5 acres. Later, the district and regional health board were equally aggressive in eliminating septic systems in Coeur d’Alene by forcing residents to hook to the municipal sewer system. Spokane County residents, meanwhile, have paid a small fee for more than 20 years to protect the aquifer.

Kootenai County residents began to grasp the importance of the aquifer in the past decade or so when they fought proposed construction projects on the Rathdrum Prairie to build an aluminum re-melting plant, power-generating plants and the BNSF refueling depot. Most but not all the battles were lost. But the result of the fight was a growing awareness by elected officials, as well as businesses and householders, that the aquifer was precious.

Today, an out-of-state power company couldn’t locate a major plant that sucks millions of gallons of water daily from the aquifer. But every day, thousands of dry wells dump runoff from roofs and parking lots unfiltered into the aquifer. They need to be eliminated. Storage of chemicals and petroleum products need to be monitored. The public needs to be educated about the importance of the aquifer. All this can be done with a yes vote on this crucial ballot measure.