By Nicholas K. Geranios | July 24, 2024 | Cascade PBS
Politicians are celebrating the tentative agreement, while activists and tribal leaders say it doesn’t do enough to protect endangered salmon runs.
The United States and Canada have reached a new deal to manage the mighty Columbia River, an economic and environmental powerhouse that starts in Canada and flows through Washington and borders Oregon on its journey to the Pacific Ocean.
After six years of negotiations, the two nations have updated a 60-year-old Columbia River Treaty that apportions the benefits and risks of the so-called Great River of the West.
The deal must still be approved by the U.S. Senate and the Canadian prime minister. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the agreement on July 11 and said it would last for 20 years. The treaty was originally ratified in 1961.
The agreement will reduce the amount of power the U.S. sends to Canada, but also will afford the U.S. less storage capacity in Canadian reservoirs to protect downstream communities in Washington and Oregon from floods. The deal allows Canada more opportunities to import and export hydropower into the U.S. market, a crucial boost to both countries, Biden said.
While the treaty was celebrated by politicians and energy administrators, conservationists and tribal leaders expressed concerns that it didn’t do enough to protect the environment, particularly endangered salmon and steelhead runs.
“The United States and Canada reaching an agreement in principle to modernize the Columbia River Treaty regime after over six years of tough negotiations is an important step forward,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), said in a press release.
“I am hopeful the agreement successfully meets our objectives and works for ratepayers, tribes, river users, our local ecosystems, and everyone on our side of the border,” said Murray.
Biden said in a statement that the new agreement reflects the changing climate and the changing needs of the communities that depend on the Columbia River, including tribal nations.
He said the revised treaty “will elevate U.S. Tribes’ and Canadian Indigenous Nations’ voices” and will “re-balance energy coordination between the United States and Canada.”
Treaty Details
Currently, Canada is entitled to half the hydropower generated by dams in the river basin, which Canada mostly sells to U.S. interests. That was a sticking point in negotiations, as the U.S. government sought to reduce the so-called “Canadian entitlement.”
John Hairston, head of the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets hydropower from the dams, said the Canadian entitlement will decrease to less than half of its current level by 2033, which would give the United States almost 600 megawatts of additional power-generating capacity.
“These new terms will go a long way towards helping meet the growing demands for energy in the region and avoid building unnecessary fossil-fuels-based generation,” Hairston said.
In exchange for the reduction in power, transmission rights currently held by the BPA would be transferred to Canada, Hairston said. The two countries would work together to develop a new power transmission station, known as an intertie, north of Spokane to help Canada market its power to the United States.
Rachel Poynter, deputy assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, described three pillars of the updated treaty: protecting communities from flooding; advancing clean-energy goals through hydropower generation; plus “a vital and overdue emphasis on improving our ecosystems and collaboration with the region’s tribes and Indigenous nations.”
The deal comes as the Northwest faces increased demand for power from the development of data centers and as more people adopt electric vehicles and appliances.
The region could need as much as 4,000 megawatts of additional power to keep pace with demand over the next five years.
Negotiations on the new treaty began in 2018. Under the new terms, the U.S. will reduce the amount of energy it sends over the border, which the U.S. currently values at between $229 million and $335 million annually. And the U.S. will no longer pay for the cost of moving energy on the grid to fulfill its power-sharing obligation.
In exchange for receiving less U.S. power and taking over the transmission rights, Canada will benefit from an expanded intertie north of Spokane paid for by American taxpayers, but exactly how much additional electricity could move between the two countries is unclear.
The U.S. will pay Canada $37.6 million per year, indexed for inflation over 20 years, in exchange for 3.6 million acre-feet of storage in Canadian reservoirs, less than half the old treaty’s 8.95 million acre-feet of water storage.
Trudeau noted the role the original treaty has played in reducing flood damage and providing clean energy for millions of households and businesses in both countries. He said in a statement that the agreement in principle “is the result of extensive engagement, notably with Indigenous and local communities, to ensure that all interests are heard, represented and addressed.”
The existing treaty’s 60-year-old flood-control provisions are set to expire in September, after which the U.S. will have to request that Canada hold water in its reservoirs to avert downstream flooding in Washington and Oregon. Canada would not be under any legal obligation to do so.
Negotiators between the two nations will continue and hopefully submit the new treaty to the Senate for ratification by the end of the year, according to U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).
Cantwell and U.S. Sen Jim Risch (R-Idaho), both expressed support while reserving judgment until they see the draft treaty.
“There is no way to truly estimate the tremendous economic, environmental, and recreational value of the Columbia River to our state and region,” Cantwell said.
Risch said, “Today’s announcement of a preliminary agreement between the United States and Canada looks promising, but as always, I look forward to seeing all the details.”
Environmental Criticism
The agreement was criticized by advocates for salmon and steelhead runs.
Joseph Bogaard of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition said Northwest conservation groups are “frustrated and disappointed” with the deal.
“This agreement maintains the primacy of power production and flood-risk management and continues to leave salmon and the health of the river uncertain and at risk,” Bogaard said. “This river is sick, and its fish are in trouble.”
“The agreement focuses on revenue for BPA (Bonneville Power Administration) and customers, while the salmon and Columbia River are left with a status quo that was already inadequate,” said Bill Arthur of the Sierra Club.
Tribes and environmental groups had argued a modernized treaty must put ecosystem health on the same level of importance as hydropower and flood control.
“The ecosystem-based function should have been the third leg of this discussion,” Shannon Wheeler, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe, told The Seattle Times. He added that salmon runs “have remained barely above extinction.”
The Nez Perce and other Columbia River tribes in the 1800s signed treaties with the U.S. government ceding their lands but in turn reserved their rights to fish in the Columbia River basin forever.
The Columbia River’s drainage basin is roughly the size of Texas and includes parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming and British Columbia.
The Columbia River begins in Canada but flows mostly in the U.S. on its 1,243-mile route to the Pacific Ocean. It forms most of the border between Washington and Oregon. Its tributaries provide 40 percent of U.S. hydropower, irrigate $8 billion in agriculture products, and move 42 million tons of commercial cargo annually.
The original Columbia River Treaty was established after a 1948 flood washed away the Oregon city of Vanport, leaving more than 18,000 people homeless.
It provided for the construction of Libby Dam in Montana, which flooded land in Canada, and three dams in British Columbia, completed between 1968 and 1973, that together more than doubled the amount of reservoir storage in the basin.
Indigenous tribes have long wanted the Columbia to flow more like a natural river, instead of a series of reservoirs with slow-moving water that often heat up to temperatures that kill migrating salmon.
U.S. and Canadian officials said the agreement would establish a tribal-led body that will provide recommendations on how treaty operations can better support ecosystem needs.
In a written statement, Chief Keith Crow of the Syilx Okanagan Nation in British Columbia said he hoped that one day his grandchildren might harvest salmon in the upper Columbia River region.
“We still have lots of work to do with Canada and B.C. to start addressing the past and ongoing impacts to our lands, waters and people,” Crow said.
“Salmon have suffered tremendous losses through the industrialization of the Columbia Basin’s rivers, in part, as a result of this Treaty,” said Neil Brandt, executive director of WaterWatch of Oregon. “A modernized Treaty must do better for salmon.”
This article originally appeared on the Cascade PBS website on July 24, 2024.