The Columbia River Treaty is a landmark water-management agreement, ratified in 1964, by the United States and Canada which aimed to co-ordinate water management within the Columbia River Basin, particularly through the construction of four large dams in the headwaters. Three treaty dams were built in B.C. with an additional dam located in Montana.

Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden announced an “Agreement in Principle” for the modernization of the Columbia River Treaty.

The agreement is the culmination of six years of negotiation and countless environmental studies of the rivers and reservoirs of the region. The negotiations were precedent-setting, with the engagement of two countries, a province and multiple states alongside extensive Indigenous representation.

The proposed modernization has a real chance to better recognize the ecological needs of the region alongside a range of social, cultural and economic impacts in a changing climate.

The original treaty objectives were narrowly focused on flood risk management and hydropower generation, issues that remain prevalent in the basin to this day with the Columbia River system providing approximately 40 per cent of U.S. hydropower.

Demand on hydropower systems is rising in both the U.S. and Canada as both countries move to decarbonize their power grids.

An additional, decidedly more modern, complication is that with........

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