Hugh Kieffer deserves the credit
In fairness to others, that was not an original idea of mine - I was repeating ideas I had read that I now know were due to Hugh Kieffer of USGS. They did (and still do) fit nicely with my own ideas that much, if not all, of the modern activity on Mars is due to phase changes of CO2 and not related to the behaviour of H2O at all.
Hugh and his team at USGS have worked for many years to substantiate this story of the geysers and the "spiders". They have faced some resistance from the Mars community but not too much. It's interesting that is has taken so long to get a major publication, though. This stuff was in conferences in 1999.