text
stringlengths 182
1.57k
|
|---|
there were also negative impacts of the dams weren't necessarily equally shared by the two countries. So the United States had fairly significant adverse impacts on fish and salmon habitat and some losses of land. But in Canada, as a result of the three dams that were constructed, there was major flooding and dislocation of entire communities. So Canada, although they were ultimately compensated for it, did have sort of more significant negative impacts as a result of the treaties. So the case for modernization, the Columbia River Treaty has no expiration date, but 2024 is significant because it is the earliest of the terms of the treaty can be terminated. And so without renegotiation, also in addition to the termination provision without renegotiation, the flood control provisions will shift. So this presents an opportunity for the United States and Canada as well as other stakeholders on both sides of the border to reconsider the scope of the treaty and evaluate its effectiveness. And I think within a water diplomacy framework, the fact that this renegotiation process is baked into the initial agreement as a strength. We can talk about whether like the 60 year timeline is too long, but I think it is interesting that none of the original negotiators expected that the original agreement would last forever. But at the same time, this has also introduced some measure of conflict, I guess, because everyone wants the treaty to be updated in a way that reflects their priorities and values. So thinking about modernization |
which is the word being used by the negotiators, there's sort of five main issues that have been raised during these ongoing conversations. This is not an exhaustive list, lots of other things that have been brought up as well. But I think it sort of summarizes the most significant arguments. So I'm going to walk through each of these five. So first, as I mentioned, issue number one is that 2024, the current flood risk management provisions change to a less defined approach. And instead of Canada providing a set amount of flood control every year, it will be as an on call basis, and the US will pay on an annual basis based on how much flood risk has been assessed. So this is sort of the core part of the original treaty and it will expire unless measures are taken to renew or modify it. And in addition, it is the earliest date at which the treaty can be terminated provided that either Canada or the United States provides 10 years written notice. No one has provided this, so the treaty will not be determined or be terminated in 2024. But it sort of catalyzed this era of renegotiations beginning around 2011, 2012. That's issue one. Issue number two is that since the original treaty negotiation process in the 1960s, stakeholders outside of the main negotiating parties have argued that the treaty neglects ecosystem needs. So the renegotiation process has opened the door for a variety of environmental advocates. In particular |
the dams built as a result of the treaty have altered the river's ecology and contributed to the decline of salmon fisheries. So in a 1995 opinion on the impacts of the entire Columbia River power system on salmon. Noah, the National Oceanographic Association, had set flow objectives at each of the Columbia River basin dams. In the last 20 years, the spring target has been missed roughly 27% of the time. So 27% of the time, there's not adequate flow at these dams for salmon to pass. And in the initial studies about renegotiation, the US and Canadian entities didn't address any of these ecosystem needs. They only addressed updating the power and flood control agreements, although subsequent documents have addressed incorporating more ecosystem-based function requirements. So you can see here on this map on the right, where there are salmon passages and where the dams have prevented any kind of fish migration. So everything north, almost everything north of the Canadian border, the salmon habitat has been completely destroyed. And in particular, groups that have been harmed by the original treaty and who have advocated consistently for considering salmon habitats are the Canadian First Nations and United States Native American tribes. And you can see here on the right |
the historical land of the Yakima and Matilla Nez-Person Warm Springs tribes who have formed a coalition to advocate for incorporating ecosystem functions in the modernized treaty. And that group came out with a statement recently that said that any modifications to the treaty must ensure full engagement and consent from tribes and first nations and be in alignment with articulated indigenous governance principles. So they're advocating essentially for expanding the formal negotiation team to include representatives from Native American tribes and First Nations. Next, stakeholders sort of responding to these needs on both sides have identified ecosystem functions as a key component of a modernized treaty. The US came out and said that there's an opportunity for inclusion of certain additional ecosystem operations and the BC side, the British Columbia side said basically the exact same statement. There is certainly a lack of clarity about what exactly ecosystem functions mean. It's sort of become a buzzword within this negotiation process. And a lot of stakeholders trying to advocate for clarifying and determining what exactly are we thinking about when we're talking about ecosystem functions. And then finally, the terms of the Canadian entitlement have led to conditions that disadvantage US electricity consumers. Because the Canadian entitlement specifies that all power generated downstream would be split evenly among the United States and Canada |
although the energy market has changed considerably since 1964. So the original economic assumptions were based on forecasts of declining downstream power, but these prove to be incorrect. And so the power sharing agreement has ultimately been more favorable to Canada than to the US. And the US entity has proposed rebalancing the power benefits to better reflect the actual value of the coordinated operations. However, some Northwest politicians believe that the terms of the treaty are beyond repair and introduced a bipartisan resolution in the United States House of Representatives calling for its termination. Well, this seems unlikely. It is another sticking point in the renegotiation process. So formal negotiations opened on May 30th in 2018. And in June 20, 2020, the 10th round of treaty negotiations occurred via web conference. And at the conclusion of those most recent conversations, the two sides released almost identical press statements, which I've excerpted on this slide. Due to the confidential nature of the cross-border negotiations, the specific details of Canada's initial proposal and of the US framework that they're referencing here have not been made public. And this lack of information has been really frustrating to the numerous stakeholders who regard modernizing the treaty as essential. So in 2018, a coalition of 31 nonprofit organizations sent a letter to the US entity advocating for, among other things |
the expansion of the US negotiating team to include a broader range of stakeholders and greater transparency in the negotiation process. So I'll talk a little bit about like how the negotiations actually work. Each side is represented by an entity. And the US entity is made up of the State Department, the Bonneville Power Administration, which covers multiple states in the Pacific Northwest, and the Northwest Division of the US Army Corps of Engineers. And the Canadian entity is represented by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs traded and development in the BC Hydro Power Authority. And so these are the sort of formal negotiators, but in addition to those teams, there are numerous other stakeholders who are not formally involved in the negotiation process but have claims to the basin. So these include, for example, states and their legislators, a large assortment of NGOs and other nonprofits, public utility districts, and tribes in both the United States and Canada. So as far as like thinking about what comes next and trying to imagine sort of how this treaty might resolve. As I said, the negotiations are still very much in progress and there's not a ton of information about how things have been evolving. That said |
there seems to be a consensus emerging around how they can leverage the treaty to address ecosystem functions and other environmental concerns such as climate change. This seems to be a priority for many of the non-formal stakeholders and has that has been reflected in statements made by the US and Canadian entities. There are lots of stakeholders who all have various views about how the treaty should be modernized. And there are even some stakeholders who believe that a formal treaty is unnecessary. So I think there is sort of a more, I think it's unlikely that that actually emerges as an option. But there's a question of whether the two sides could cooperate on flood control without a formal treaty or whether, you know, good treaties make good neighbors. So that's where that's where I'm at. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Jim, for excellent presentation. I think it's really nice the way that you have presented. It's really wonderful. So now I would like to, yeah, askop and Flora to make the comments and yeah, then we can discuss further. So what will you think will be the biggest challenge to overcome from the government side? I think it's sort of this fundamental question of the treaty that they have has basically worked for 60 years and people have been pretty happy with it on both sides. The US feels like they're overpaying for power but that's sort of been the main objection to the treaty as it currently stands. However, I think there is a fairly broad consensus that the treaty should be |
the scope of the treaty should be expanded to include all of these ecosystem, not all of these ecosystem services, but certain ecosystem services relating to salmon fisheries and climate change. And I think figuring out, I think the biggest challenge for the government is figuring out, to what extent are we going to transform this treaty that has basically worked for 60 years and sort of brought in the scope of these negotiations, which I think it's just sort of a slippery slope. And is this treaty as, you know, even the right vehicle for having those conversations about trend boundary environmental concerns. I don't know. I'm not sure I actually have an answer to that one. Yeah, I think that's the biggest challenge. I'm also thinking something that since the climate changes in the climate changes very much in the issue. So, help me understand this because I'm not that much familiar with the US government system. So I was thinking that, for example, the last government of the US, as far my understanding goes, not really very supportive of the measures to be taken about the climate change and everything. And I know that like in the US, there is a spoiler system. Like, once the government changes, almost a major portion of the administration changes. So with this shift of administration, do you think like that will have significant effect on making the future decisions on this treaty? And if yes, then how that might end up? Yeah, I think I would venture yes. I think that even under the Trump administration |
climate change still featured in this treaty because if, for example, there is less snow melt or less snow accumulation because of a changing climate that has serious impacts on, you know, U.S. hydroelectric power generation and the economy of the Pacific Northwest, I think 40% of Washington electricity is hydroelectric. So if there's less water, there's less power, and that's quite devastating to the Northwest economy. So to that extent, I think it's sort of the impacts, the potential impacts of climate change on this treaty had already been taken into consideration, whether under the current administration that might be expanded to include sort of more comprehensive environmental values, it seems possible. I also think that this treaty is not a major foreign policy priority for either government. So it's kind of skated under the radar a little bit. And during like some of the, there were 10 rounds of negotiations and then it kind of was put on hold during the changing government. So I think whether it will be picked up with sort of more focus on environmental concerns, I think remains to be seen. Actually, both the questions came from my experience as a government officer, because in our case, in the US or in most of the developed countries generally what I see that although the governments change but the national policies and the national goals more or less remain same very minor changes unless like some drastic measures they can but in this the world, government changes |
the whole thing falls apart and you start from you. So which is why I was trying to actually understand this thing so that I can actually design my presentation and paper from that perspective. Thank you very much. It was an amazing presentation and I loved it. Thanks, Marshall. Do you have any feedback or question for Jema? Yeah, yeah, I really, really enjoyed this presentation. Great job. I appreciate your use of graphics. I think, you know, making a presentation is, you know, good presentation is always not as easy as it seems. So, yeah, overall, I think I learned a lot. It was very easy to follow. I definitely had a couple points that I would consider as like further considerations, like not really necessary, but things that came to mind while I was listening to the presentation. So I'll run through and you can either respond or not respond to each one. So the first one is, are there still opportunities for further hydropower expansion along the Columbia River? Because you mentioned that flooding is still a priority, but I know in a lot of parts of the world, hydropower expansion is really diminishing because we're just utilizing everything that we can. So, yeah, so in my understanding, there is not, there are no opportunities for additional dam construction. There are opportunities for greater efficient, like greater electric efficiency. Some dams have been identified as potential targets for removal, which would then catalyze additional needs on the existing dams for flood trul measures. Um, Yeah, those are right. Yeah, yeah |
yeah, and so then the next one, so you talked about this a little bit, especially at the end, but I was wondering like how climate change might exacerbate the water resources in the future. And like, I guess specifically if certain stakeholders should be included. So you already mentioned a lot of stakeholders that are not being included. But it would be interesting if like ecologists either like representing the like two countries or some kind of neutral ecology representation to be included in the negotiations to really advocate for these environmental needs and not just the wants of the two countries like economically or technologically. Yeah, that's a great question. I think one of the suggestions that has emerged in recent years is officially adding NOAA to the US entity team to have a better advocate for sort of environmental impacts in that formal body. That is one of the things, or like other sort of representatives from the US Department of the Interior that could sort of be more of a voice for environmental concerns compared to like the power administrations who have sort of clear expertise on the hydroelectric side, but aren't necessarily equipped to consider salmon habitats and things like that. So that's one of the strategies that has been proposed. Has not happened yet. Awesome. Okay, so the next thing is about, so you did a good job of explaining the gains and losses from the treaties point of view, like which parties were suffering and which ones were really experiencing gain |
but it'd be interesting to learn more about like how this treaty was successful in terms of negotiation. So not just the effects of the treaty itself, but also like, if people are saying that this is like the model negotiation treaty, it's I'm sure it's not just because of what the treaty was able to achieve, but also like how the treaty was negotiated. I think that's like one of the most interesting things about your presentation is that it basically refers to no animosity between the countries. Like it took a really, really long time, like decades of negotiations, but like almost nowhere in your presentation did you mention like, well, they like really, you know, like got stuck on this one issue or they couldn't move forward because like this one party was like not cooperating and I don't know I think it'd be interesting to understand like why why is that like it's must have like something to do with the negotiations and then also probably the conditions of what's happening. Yeah, that's a great point. I have not really built that in, but I think that's a, yeah, that's super helpful. I'm definitely going to do that. Yeah, I think like an easy way is like looking at the Bruno Verdeen's 12 steps and just checking off like which ones seemed to be fulfilled and then which ones don't because I imagine many are checked and then that's why it was yeah, no |
no, it was really interesting I think it's like a big shift from the case that I'm working on where like basically the government hate each other and like that's why nothing is able to get forward and I think it's just um it's interesting to see how long the timeline is even if the governments don't hate each other. Yeah I was thinking a lot of that a lot about that after listening to Hussein's case last week and And like the two, they kind of arrived, the US and Canada kind of arrived at the negotiating people with this idea of mutual gains in mind. And the treaty emerged from that. And it wasn't the, it's not that the treaty is enabling an effective diplomatic relationship. The treaty is the result of an effective diplomatic relationship. So how that kind of differs and how that might be leveraged for a sort of more comprehensive and forward looking document going going forward. So yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. Yeah, no, I'm just trying to see. Okay, so the last thing that I had was, I mean, you mentioned this as one of your open questions, but like, it's really interesting what the consequences for the different stakeholders would be if the treaty was terminated. I think like it seems like everyone's on the same page that like treaty's working, it's good, but then it's really weird that like they're unable to extend the treaty. It seems like mainly just because people are dragging their feet. But yeah, it seems like in most cases if the treaty went away, stakeholders would have some kind of loss. But I don't know. I don't know. Yeah |
thanks for a very constructive suggestion. So any other suggestions from Aaron or Cassian or as nine? Okay, so yeah, I would like to ask one thing. Maybe Mushroop touched upon it, you mentioned five areas of new renegotiation process. So, and so what are the disagreement among these areas that you mentioned among the two parties between Canada and US? Is there kind of, who are you able to explore the disagreement among the parties for those areas that that can negotiation might stack? I think what it's interesting about this case is that the disagreement isn't necessarily between the two entities, but also between all of these sort of peripheral, or not even peripheral, like they're deeply involved, they're just not part of the formal process. So one of the things that's been so interesting looking through all of the documents that have been, or the statements that have been put out by the US and Canada is how identical they are. So they kind of, they, after each round of negotiations, they put up these statements they're like, oh, we made so much progress, like we responded to their framework, we responded to their framework |
like things are moving right along. And all of the sort of complexity seems to be driven by these other actors who are pushing for change. So I'm not sure if there's like necessarily a ton of disagreement between the the two countries around say like the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the negotiation process. Like I think both countries are sort of willing to expand the scope of the treaty to think about how those those tribes have been harmed over the last 60 years. But the conflict then is like how does the sort of collaborative treaty mechanism respond to the needs of these stakeholders on both sides of the border? Does that answer a question? Yeah, yeah, thanks. So the second issue that I wanted to mention that you mentioned climate sense is one of the future aspects that need to be considered. So is there any study that can provide details what are the expected impacts of the climate sense? Is it future flooding or is it the impact on the energy hydropower generation? So I think if you can mention those impact, I think then it could be much more, I think your suggestion could be much more solid. Yes, I think I left that out for complexity's sake here, but I think the main concern is sort of this shift from a basin that's driven by snow melt, to a basin that's driven by rain. And as that, like, as there is less snowmalt and more rain, the kind of flood control mechanisms change as well as the potential like management of hydropower over time. So yes, I do have sources for that and I will include those in my final case study. Yeah. Jim |
I've mentioned to you a couple times along the way, um, that it's invisible, but the states and the provincial governments in Canada are in fact very much calling the shots. Yeah. And they're not officially part of the entities. But remember that the US entity is led by the State Department because allegedly this is an international negotiation. And the State Department has no relationships with the governors of all those states, no longstanding working relationships, which has caused some severe difficulty for those governors. It may be, you don't have to do this, but you might want to imagine as a last little piece of your paper what it might be like and how helpful it might be to imagine a second track of negotiations convened by the US governors and the provincial leadership in BC with First Nations and Tribes. I mean, they would have enormous credibility. They said, we're getting together because we are convinced that the future of this agreement, whether it's strengthened or renewed or replaced, it needs to take account of changing conditions from 60 years ago and we feel those when we have responsibilities. And if they were to organize a set of sessions with NGOs and touch this on their own. The State Department, I promise you, would cut the same way that the Canadian agencies would show up, but they wouldn't be there in their official capacity. And if they just took three or four questions, maybe even two or three questions, that are not addressed for the future in the existing treaty |
and laid out substantively agreements they might reach, the same way that Bruno described local officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, initiating their own conversations, trying to come up with what they'd like to see as jointly beneficial elements of a future supplementary agreement, which then became the basis of what the US government negotiated. I think the same thing could happen. And I think it's, I think the two big differences between then and now are that there were enormous number of positive benefits to be shared in the beginning. Yeah. And so they were getting together, I agree that everyone who pointed out they start with friendly relationships matters, but when the actual negotiators sat down, okay, how much flood control are you going to give me? Well, how much money are you going to give me? And that was the negotiation. Whereas now it's okay, what restrictions are we going to impose? What dams are we going to take down? Who's going to build the new flood control systems if you take down existing dams to make salmon migration possible? It's not all about allocating gains. That's one big difference. The second is, nobody had those concerns about salmon and climate and other natural resource questions and ecological concerns, the way we do now. And that's not represented well in the entities. And but the concerns are there, but the entities can't really negotiate them very well. So I think if you if you look at what's what's different in big ways between then and now |
that the response to that that would be most effective in the short term is to have a different track of local and non-governmental and scientific negotiators generate some of the elements of a supplementary subsidiary version, or addition to the existing agreement. And I think governors, governors in those states have been tracking every move in the State Department. I mean, my engagement in this case, I think I mentioned, happened when I was doing training for the State Department and the two guys who were appointed by the State Department to lead these conversations with zero, zero background in anything Northwest, water, Canada, that absolutely just thrown into this and they were saying, so we got a problem. These governors are telling us that they want to say what should happen. And we don't know, how should we negotiate that? That was the question they were asking is, how should we do this negotiation with these governors who don't have any official role while we're trying to negotiate with the Canadians? That was the conversation. And I don't think they figured it out. And I think there's the enormous pressure coming on the US government from the states. That's a thing I've been trying to untangle is the relationship of state governments to their representatives back to the federal government because so many state representatives and senators from the Northwest states have come out with various, you know, official statements and their perspective on these renegotiations and like what, you know |
you know, how are the Washington senators coordinating with the Washington governor to get things back to the State Department like trying to tease out all of those? They're not? They're not? That's for show. That's, we're trying to make political capital on the legislative side. The key is the governors. The governors have the access to the White House. The governors only care later about getting the Senate to ratify any change in the treaty. Between now and then the House of Representatives, the governors don't care to talk to them. There's nothing they're going to do for this. So my sense is that when you see state legislators and congressional legislators from the states making noise about this issue, it's political self-promotion to try to gain some advantage from all of this, but it isn't because they expect to be part of solving it. Got it. That's good to know. What's helpful? But it is wonderful to have somebody say there's a successful treaty. I think that's great. A successful water treaty between two countries. Wonderful. It's basically worked the way it was supposed to do for a long time. And we have, you know, we have parallel negotiations after 50 years in Latin America. We didn't spend much time on it, but there are negotiations between different countries in Latin America where treaties that existed over shared waters for 50 years are up. And you can't just extend the treaty. Everything has changed so much. But nobody knows, well, but we've had this treaty at 50 years. It's worked. Why should we mess with it? Well |
because the conditions have all changed. But that doesn't that doesn't translate into a specific strategy for how to do the negotiation. In my view, if if there is anything we've learned, it's that you need to get all the stakeholders, I mean, Aaron's one of his four conclusions, you need to get all the stakeholders into the story. Well, you can't do that in an official treaty renegotiation. So you have to run a parallel effort and get the other stakeholders into the substance of what should the new agreement say and why. And as Bruno has shown, if you can get agreement at the next level down from the national government on the two sides, and you have real players with stakes, and they say this is what we think, whether it's you're changing the treaty, you're extending it with a new supplementary terms to, however you do it, here's the substance and we all agree with it and we'll all support it. Yeah. That for me is how the, what a diplomacy framework meshes with the political reality of the treaty renegotiation. But I think presentation was terrific. It's such an interesting circumstance. I don't think you can conclude anything at this stage, but I think you can say as you have, look, this is a problem. Treaty renegotiation |
treaty extension. Here's what they face. Here's what they got into it. Here's what they're trying. Maybe they could try this. But I don't think you anyone could hold you or anyone else to try to come up with a conclusion about anything in this case at this stage of the game. I think we're at the lessons learning phase more than we're at the lessons learned phase. Yeah, maybe in a few years someone can update it. I hope so. We'll give them your paper to start with. Yeah, so thanks Zuma again for the presentation. Also thanks. And I don't know for the presentation. So on next week, we'll have last two cases by Mushroof and Flora. And as I already mentioned that the deadline for submission is on 21st of May. So yeah, we are expecting much more massive presentation and also much more final piece of your work in the next week. And as I already mentioned that, please provide your feedback by May 24th. I guess you already. Yeah, on the whole course. Yeah, for the whole course. As you already add a footnote to what Adam said at the outset. MIT has this online, give it a rating, here's a set of questions. And then they say what the average score was on each question by averaging across whoever happened to answer. I do not find this system helpful. I've never learned anything from that device and I have always asked people to please just send a paragraph something. What do you think the strengths and weaknesses of the course are and what idea do you have about something we could do to improve it? In a conversational just rough draft email |
that's how I learn stuff about what we do in the course and how to improve it. So yes, MIT would like you to please fill out the formal evaluation form and we'll live with whatever the numerical score is, whatever that means. But we really would like to learn something from you. No, we made a decision to have guest presenters, particular guest presenters. Did we make good choices? Did we give them good advice about how to structure what they were presenting? Anamesh and I tried to provide the water diplomacy framework in some more expository way at the outset. We ask everyone to pick a case and write a case. We use the aquapedia frame so that people have some common device because it's worth it because we've put, publish your paper in the aqua pedia. I mean, so we make a bunch of decisions. Those could all be different. Yeah, and also last thing I would like to mention that last year, two students, so one of the students was able to submit their final paper into a journal article. So it's already submitted in one of the journal article. Another student is still working on that. And another student was able to publish their article in a newspaper. So this kind of thing says, these are the practical things. So all these are the possibilities that you can do and I am happy to support you. So yeah |
this I think it's very practical. So it's very encouraging to us that there's peer acceptance and excitement about the things that are produced in the course. So we tell the stories of people whose papers became theses or dissertations or their papers became articles in peer review journals or their papers turned into op-eds. This is all for us, one indicator that people getting something out of the thinking, reading, writing, listening, talking that happens in the course. So we hope you'll think of a way to capitalize on all the work you did in some other outlets if you can. And we'll help, we'll help. In some cases it takes another year to deal with the journal that wants more elaboration and we'll be glad online to help you if you want to follow up on any of this. Is there any other specific issue that you would like to mention maybe for the final paper or other issue? I think everybody's just doing wonderful work and we're very excited about the products. See everybody next week for the last go at this. So all right. Bye. Stay well. Next day. Thank you. All right. Bye. All thankew. Thank you. All. Thank you. Great day. Thanks. |