Senior Water Resources Engineer Stantec, Florida, United States
Abstract Submission: The Columbia River Treaty (Treaty) is an international Treaty established for the cooperative management of the Columbia River System in Canada and the United States. Since it was signed in 1961, the Treaty has served as an excellent example of transboundary collaboration on water resource management. Sharing the benefits of cooperative water management was an integral principle in the Treaty’s design. The principle applied in the Treaty was to share these benefits equally between the two countries. Thus, for flood control, Canada was paid 50 percent of the value of U.S. flood damages prevented. In exchange for operating the Treaty storage projects for power generation, Canada also received an entitlement to one-half of the estimated additional downstream power benefits generated in the United States. Long and short-term plans are prepared each year by both countries in order to manage the river system in accordance with the Treaty and optimize the benefits for both countries. This paper will provide a background on the Treaty, describe some of the conflicts that have been addressed through the extensive transboundary collaboration used to manage the Columbia River System, and summarize efforts to plan for the future of the Treaty.
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