The province will forfeit more than US$1-billion in hydroelectricity revenues, while the U.S. will pay tens of millions of dollars a year for B.C.’s role in holding back flood waters
Water spills over the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, which runs along the Washington and Oregon state line, in June, 2022.British Columbia will regain greater control over one of the continent’s most important waterways, but will forfeit more than US$1-billion in hydroelectricity revenues to U.S. power users in a new agreement to modernize the countries’ joint management of the Columbia River.
A finalized treaty could take another year or two to ratify, adding an element of political uncertainty, with the U.S. electing a president in November. Still, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the agreement “demonstrates what has long been the case: that our two countries work so closely together for the benefit of our people.”
At the same time, waters dammed on the Columbia flooded important Indigenous sites. The disappearance of salmon from its upper reaches was a change so profound that Canadian authorities at one point trucked in Spam to Indigenous communities to compensate for the disappearance of salmon as food. The reduction in those payments, which comes into effect next month, “looks like a positive piece,” he said, with benefits that will accrue to electricity users across the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
“Yes, we did take less in funding. But we got more in actual benefits, which is critically important,” said Katrine Conroy, the B.C. Finance Minister, who is responsible for Columbia River matters.
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