Trump wants Canada to turn on ‘faucet’: The Columbia River treaty

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About a 10-minute drive from the Fairmont Hot Springs, a major tourist destination in southeastern British Columbia, lies Columbia Lake.

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From that lake, which covers more than a dozen kilometres of a trench that carves north-south through the Rocky Mountains, runs the Columbia River, the mightiest waterway in the Pacific Northwest.

The Columbia River was once wild, its path determined by nature, its abundance relied upon by Indigenous communities. Now, it’s heavily developed, both on the main stream and the many tributaries it feeds across multiple U.S. states.

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Since the 1960s, the Columbia’s water flow — and the use of that water — has been governed by the Columbia River Treaty. Parts of that treaty have been under negotiation since 2024.

Now, U.S. President Donald Trump has set his eyes on the river, alluding to the idea that there’s a great “faucet” in Canada that could be turned on in order to moisten the U.S. southwest.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Columbia River Treaty and what Trump has said.

What’s the route of the river?

Roughly, Invermere, B.C. to south of Portland, Ore.

With 18 hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and its main tributary, the Snake River, between the headwaters in eastern British Columbia and its terminus near Astoria, Ore. — and dams on various other tributaries — the Columbia River is responsible for more than 40 per cent of all hydroelectric power generated in the United States.

What is the treaty about?

Fundamentally, the treaty deals with just two things: flood mitigation and hydroelectric power.

At the time the treaty was signed — more than 60 years ago — other considerations, such as Indigenous rights and ecological health, were secondary matters.

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When it comes to flood mitigation, the idea is to use the series of dams in Canada and the United States to prevent flooding along the river’s path.

“Flood control gets the top of the list because it kills people, right, if you don’t get it sorted,” said Nigel Bankes, a law professor at the University of Calgary.

What about irrigation?

Certainly, the water along the Columbia River is used for irrigation. But for the purposes of the treaty, irrigation is secondary to flood mitigation and hydro generation.

“In the U.S., there’s an awful lot of irrigation in eastern Oregon and Washington, and they get a lot of that irrigation water out of Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee,” said Bankes.

The Grand Coulee Dam, which straddles the Columbia River, lies just south of the Canada-U.S. border. It was actually build a couple decades prior to the Columbia River Treaty, but it has a massive reservoir, Lake Roosevelt.

The reservoir is most efficient, both for irrigation and power generation, if it’s kept full. (Imagine water running out of an irrigation canal from a brimming reservoir compared to a depleted reservoir where water has to be pumped out.)

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“The U.S. goal in a lot of this is to keep Grand Coulee as high as possible for as long as possible,” said Bankes.

What has Trump said?

When he was still the Republican candidate, Trump mused about a “very large faucet” that could be turned on in Canada to bring water to the arid U.S. southwest.

But whatever Trump has in mind, the Columbia River isn’t that faucet.

The river ends well over 1,000 kilometres away from Los Angeles, Calif., for example. If Trump envisioned some sort of future where the Columbia River fed parched parts of the southwest U.S., it would take a Herculean effort to build infrastructure to get the water from the northern U.S. to the south.

And from the Canadian perspective, says Bankes, the “faucet” is largely already always open, filling up reservoirs south of the border for irrigation and hydroelectricity. The actual use of water in Canada for anything but filling the U.S. reservoirs is insignificant, since there’s generally not much need for irrigation in the Columbia River basin because it’s such a wet area.

“You can’t turn the faucet on, the faucet’s on already. It only gets you to Portland,” said Bankes.

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However, media reports say Trump also mentioned the treaty to then prime minister Justin Trudeau in a February phone call, saying that it was unfair to the United States. Negotiations on the treaty stalled under former president Joe Biden and under Trump, negotiations have been paused while the U.S. administration reviews its negotiating position.

What is up for negotiation?

The treaty itself is still in effect. Nothing has expired. To end the treaty would require either Canada or the United States to give 10-years’ notice. That hasn’t happened.

But because some provisions have come up for negotiation, simply because of the timelines set out in the original treaty, there is a push to recognize some of the other issues, such as the effect of the dam system on ecological health or the tribal interests at play for Indigenous communities. (These negotiations had begun in 2018.)

Fundamentally, though, what’s at issue is “assured flood control operation.” Historically, the U.S. could basically order Canadian dams around, telling them what to do in order to mitigate flooding in the United States.

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However, some of the original terms of the treaty changed automatically in September 2024. That’s a date that was set in the original treaty. The U.S. lost that power, and the system shifted to “called upon operation,” which means that the U.S. must use all of its available reservoir space to control flooding before going to the Canadians, who in turn aren’t obliged to do what is asked.

“The big issue in the negotiation was to put in place a more limited assured operation than was available under the original treaty, but for which the United States would pay,” said Bankes.

What about money?

The original agreement saw the U.S. pay Canada around US$64 million in a one-time payment for flood control.

Over the course of eight years of negotiations, Canada and the U.S. reached an agreement in principle on “modernizing” the treaty in July 2024, prior to the automatic changes to the treaty that came into effect in September 2024.

Under the agreement in principle, Canada would have received US$37.6 million annually in payment for flood-control measures. (There’s another annual US$16-million payment for other benefits the U.S. receives, such as flow control for irrigation.)

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Additionally, Canada has long received a portion of the proceeds from hydroelectric generation south of the border. This is all rather complicated because it’s not expressed as a dollar amount. Canada, under the original treaty, was entitled to 50 per cent of the “energy and capacity benefit.” Powerex Corp. and B.C. Hydro would be able, basically, to bring that power back to Canada or market it.

“But the U.S., and in particular, owners of main-stem dams in the U.S., have long complained that they’re paying too much,” said Bankes.

The calculation upon which those benefits are paid assumes that dam owners in the U.S. are generating maximum power. But that’s not the case, because dams may need to adjust operations based on orders under the Endangered Species Act — for example, to protect salmon.

In the negotiations, part of what the United States wanted was a steady reduction over time of the benefits paid to Canada.

(The agreement would also allow Canada to reduce some of its water storage, but it would receive commensurately less benefit or payments in return.)

All this was agreed to in an agreement in principle from July 2024, but that’s not legally binding.

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“It is simply a handshake deal,” said Bankes.

And so, in the fall of 2024, Canada and the U.S. put in place an interim agreement to solve the issue created by the automatic changes to flood control that came about in September 2024.

This interim agreement is binding and will be in effect for a couple years. It is basically a more limited version of the agreement in principle and does not deal with some of the issues the agreement in principle was meant to deal with, such as treaty rights and ecosystem concerns. It deals, as the original treaty does, simply with flood control and power.

The interim arrangements also favour the United States.

“They favour the United States because the U.S. gets what it wants now, which is a reduction in what it has to pay for the power benefits, and it gets this assured flood control operation,” said Bankes.

The rest of the benefits to Canada — more flexibility and more payments — are not included in the interim agreements.

All this went down during the final months of Joe Biden’s presidency, so it remains to be seen how the new U.S. administration will approach negotiations.

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