The Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer – the sole source of fresh drinking water for nearly 500,000 Inland Northwest residents – exchanges water with the river in several places. Idaho aquifer expert Ken Lustig explains: “It’s like marble cake, chocolate and vanilla. The two are intertwined. When you tug on one, you affect the other.”

When phosphorus, a byproduct of human waste, gets into the Spokane River, it fattens up ugly algae blooms that devour the dissolved oxygen that fish depend upon. Phosphorus in the river means phosphorus in the aquifer, too. It does no good there, either.

Septic tank systems, no matter how advanced, don’t adequately remove phosphorus or some other nasty contaminants, such as nitrates. That’s just one reason there has been a strong countywide effort in recent years to get most Spokane County residents hooked up to sewers. But one big exception was made for mobile home parks. Why? The parks provide low-income housing. The idea was that forcing the parks to connect to sewer lines would be too much of a burden to park owners and residents.

Yet, 10 of the mobile home parks above the aquifer managed to pay for sewer connections in recent years, according to Bruce Rawls, Spokane County utilities director. Seventeen mobile home parks, with 665 pad sites, remain on septic tanks above the aquifer.

Two weeks ago, Washington’s Senate approved legislation doing away with the mobile home park exemption, and it’s now being debated in the House of Representatives. Connecting the mobile home parks to sewer systems wouldn’t be cheap – estimates range from $3.5 million to $4 million for all the parks. Some state funding and zero-interest loans may be available, but the mobile park owners would have to pay up. Just as the owners of the 10 connected parks did. Just as the owners of low-income apartment complexes above the aquifer did. Just as individuals throughout the county have been doing for years.

It’s a financial burden for most, no doubt, but without a clean and dependable fresh water source, everything has the potential to dry up, starting with the Inland Northwest’s quality of life, which is directly related to the economy here, which is related to jobs and the need for housing. It’s all intertwined, like that marble cake.

Requiring the county’s mobile home parks above the aquifer to get on sewers is sound legislation. It’s time to get it on the books.