The modernized Columbia River Treaty agreement-in-principle provides hydropower certainty, flood risk management and salmon and ecosystem health for the next two decades, U.S. officials said July 11.

“This is an important development for the people of the Pacific Northwest and for the United States,” said Rachel Poynter, deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

Government negotiators will now work to finalize details and submit a finalized treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification, according to a statement by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

The Columbia River and its tributaries account for 40% of U.S. hydropower, irrigate $8 billion in crops and move 42 million tons of commercial cargo valued at $28 billion, Poynter said.

The new agreement-in-principle has “specific enhancements” for the next 20 years, she said.

“This modernized treaty regime will continue to protect vibrant cities and shoreline communities from flooding and advance our clean energy goals through clean hydropower generation,” she said. “These will be supplemented by a vital and overdue emphasis on improving our ecosystems in collaboration with the region’s tribes and indigenous nations.”

The U.S. and Canada are preparing “appropriate interim measures” to implement the treaty, she said.

Poynter and other officials spoke on the record during a July 11 media call. Questions were on background and attributable to “senior administration officials.”

Power benefits

A major objective of treaty modernization was to rebalance the power benefits the U.S. shares through the Canadian entitlement, said John Hairston, Bonneville Power Administration administrator.

“The new terms represent a substantial reduction from the current amounts of energy and capacity BPA returns to Canada,” Hairston said.

That change begins immediately, as the countries complete the steps necessary to enter the modernized treaty, he said.

Beginning in August, the Canadian entitlement will be 60% of what it is today, Hairston said. By 2033, it will decrease to less than 50%.

“By 2033, the U.S. will be retaining almost 600 more megawatts of capacity and about 230 more megawatts of energy compared to today,” he said. “These new terms will go a long ways towards meeting the growing demands for more energy in the region, and avoid building unnecessary fossil fuel-based generation.”

The overall power value of the current treaty for the next 20 years is about $2.78 billion. The overall value of the modernized treaty is about $1.5 billion.

Fish impacts

The new agreement also provides a “sound framework” for continuing BPA’s environmental stewardship responsibilities, Hairston said.

“…We will continue to work with Canada to provide flow augmentation for anadromous fish on the U.S. side, but now on a more certain and long-term basis,” he said.

“Clearly, right now with the heat wave we’re experiencing and high river temperatures in the river, (there is) a lot of concern about salmon and river temperatures,” a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries official said.

The agreement provides long-term certainty that the U.S. can continue to work with Canada to seek up to 1 million acre-feet of flows to be stored in the winter and released in the spring and summer to help with salmon migration throughout the Columbia River system, the official said.

The new agreement also recognizes the need for additional flows in drier years, providing 500,000 acre-feet when available.

“There’s also a provision to form a new body that would involve both U.S. tribes and indigenous nations to make recommendations on ecosystem provisions,” the NOAA Fisheries official said. “Recommending the timing and quantity of flows for salmon in the basin is one of the key functions that has been identified for that body.”

Canadian reservoirs do not provide the same opportunity to release cold water to help cool the river, as is available through Dworshak Dam in the U.S., the official said.

“We are solidifying commitments, creating new bodies to do more in the way of science and better managing the system for anadromous fish and working with our counterparts in Canada to advance those interests,” said a senior official with the U.S. Army.

Flood risk

The United States will have access to pre-planned storage space behind Canadian Treaty dams for flood risk management. This means that in most years, U.S. reservoirs in the Columbia Basin will operate similar to today, according to the agencies.

That pre-planned flood risk management space will become available once sufficient arrangements are made or once the modernized treaty enters into force, said Michael Connor, U.S. Army assistant secretary for civil works.

“Until (that space) is available, and even in some of the wetter years once it is available, U.S. flood risk management operations will be more conservative than today or in the past, because of changes in the treaty’s flood risk management provisions versus the last 60 years,” Connor said. “This could affect system benefits in some wetter years.”

The Corps will continue working with citizens and tribes who use and rely on the Columbia River system on any changes in flows across the border from Canada, he said.

Without modernization, the treaty requires no pre-planned space in Canada, and U.S. reservoirs would have experienced much greater impacts in many more years than what is expected under the new agreement, Connor said.

“The quantity of pre-planned flood risk management space that will be available under modernization will protect against these more extreme changes and resulting impacts in U.S. reservoirs in the vast majority of years,” he said.

The U.S. makes direct payments to Canada on a year-to-year basis. The new agreement secures 3.6 million acre-feet of storage in Canadian reservoirs. The direct payment starts at $37.6 million, indexed for inflation over the 20-year period.

Under the original treaty 60 years ago, the U.S. made an upfront payment of $65 million for Canada to construct dams to provide flood-risk management.

Summary of the agreement-in-principle

https://www.state.gov/summary-of-the-agreement-in-principle-to-modernize-the-columbia-river-treaty-regime/