There can be no argument that we need clean air and water to live. But here in Napa our survival requires us to go further.

Our agriculture depends directly and immediately on environmental goods and services to sustain our economy, which is based on grape-growing, winemaking and a proximity to beautiful natural resources. All these components support a related and financially critical visitor-serving industry.

Any discussion about Measure A has to start with the reality that human life depends on the nexus between wildlife and healthy vegetation and environmental goods and services -- including clean air and water, soil formation, crop pollination, waste assimilation and water retention.

As the Napa Sustainable Winegrowing Group points out in the book "Vineyards in the Watershed," "every property affects in some way how and to what degree the watershed can support the community at large."

The consequence of Measure A is that our community would have to pay landowners to ensure the continued existence of the environmental goods and services upon which our lives and community depend. In essence, our clean water and all the other benefits we derive from our natural resources will be held hostage for a ransom. Or we will have to forgo environmental protection. With our ability to respond to threats to the environment jeopardized, we would face the risk that the goods and services the land provides to us will become degraded over time. We cannot afford either option.

Oh, but there is a third alternative -- the electorate can vote to sustain environmental protections. And the proponents of Measure A will be right there -- campaigning against them in the interest of short-term personal benefits over long-term environmental and economic health.

Proponents have tried to avoid the horrific financial morass and land use nightmare that Oregon is now suffering from by having Measure A apply only to future environmental regulations. Their premise is that we have enough conservation regulations, and that we won't need any more in the future. In essence, they seek a static regulatory structure. However, the environment is not static, human ingenuity is not static and the weather is not static. Change is inevitable. We do not know what we will get hit with next, or what we will be called upon to do to avoid the ill effects of change. The only thing static would be our ability to respond.

Given our total dependence on the health of our watersheds to sustain the agriculture on which our economy, culture and identity depend, this is more than simply a "green" question; it is a question of survival of the community as we know it.

The ultimate question each person has to ask is -- are we a community that believes protection of our natural resources sustains our way of life? Or are we collection of individuals who believe that a healthy environment is an optional commodity that should be purchased from landowners?

If we believe the latter, our economy, our way of life and our community are doomed.

Let's save Napa Valley. Let's be a community. Vote no on Measure A.

(Frater is chair of the Napa chapter of the Sierra Club.)