Curiosity from the US in Canada’s water is regarding, although nothing new. In the latest growth, the U.S. has paused negotiations the Columbia River Treaty, a key water-sharing settlement between each international locations.
Geopolitical tensions, when coupled with demand that’s outpacing a reducing provide underneath a altering local weather, are posing an imminent and really actual risk to Canada.
An deserted water challenge often called the North American Water and Energy Alliance (NAWAPA) was tabled by the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers within the Fifties. It’s thought-about a zombie challenge, at all times resurfacing, by no means useless.
The $80 billion plan proposed building of 369 constructions that may divert water from the Yukon, Liard and Peace Rivers by means of a “Rocky Mountain trench” connecting Alaska to the Mississippi and Colorado River basins, and Alberta to the Nice Lakes.
The purpose was to convey huge volumes from the “water-rich” north to “water-deficient” however extremely productive agricultural landscapes. Marc Reisner — an American environmentalist and creator of Cadillac Desert, an account of water administration and growth throughout the Midwest — estimated that “six nuclear energy vegetation value of vitality” can be required to pump the required quantity of water throughout the Rockies.
Appears like science fiction, besides that it was — and stays — a real risk to Canadian water safety.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini
Canadians not
Canada was merely in the way in which a long time in the past. Advantages from an American perspective have been clear: enhancing water safety and agricultural dominance of the American Midwest, and big vitality (hydropower) technology potential.
Nevertheless, throughout the challenge’s blueprint is a few of the most ecologically delicate and guarded wilderness in North America.
NAWAPA would have profound penalties for Indigenous communities and the setting. If enacted, it might alter the Rocky Mountain panorama and open the door to cross-border water buying and selling. When first proposed, Canadians had little appetite for the plan.
The necessity for water within the U.S. has and at all times might be higher than Canada’s as a consequence of its inhabitants and industrial dominance; subsequently Canadian justification to carry again water is considered weak from an American perspective.
Learn extra:
Canada has 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves — this is how to protect it
NAWAPA has at all times walked a positive line politically, with water being exempt from free-trade agreements and opinions on water export traditionally divisive in Canada. A long time in the past, the Canadian authorities was resistant to bilateral talks on water, and NAWAPA was thought-about impractical. That was till there was a “change of heart and attitude” in Canada. However in 2025, Canadian officers seem back to being firmly opposed.
Whereas NAWAPA has not been severely thought-about because the Nineteen Seventies, there’s rising hypothesis about whether or not it’s actually useless or simply buried in forms, which is why it’s been coined a zombie project.
Trump’s water strikes
Discuss of NAWAPA just lately resurfaced amid building of BC Hydro’s Site C that would reportedly enable water transfers east of the Rockies and south to Texas.
Just a few key moments of the primary Trump administrations have additionally resembled the early days of NAWAPA. In 2018, a memorandum of understanding gave the Secretary of the Division of the Inside a mandate to safe extra water for the arid Midwest.
Quickly after, the Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada was opened for renegotiation with the intent of optimizing vitality technology within the U.S. by means of water storage on the Canadian aspect, regardless of an elevated potential flood threat for Canada.
Significant concerns have been additionally raised on the time over extremely delicate fish populations, the necessity to guarantee sufficient habitats for delicate species and spawning, in addition to Indigenous water rights and allocations.
(AP Photograph/Don Ryan)
This was adopted by a 2020 government order by Trump to modernize America’s water resource management and water infrastructure. The order was aimed toward enhancing co-ordination amongst U.S. businesses managing water or infrastructure points and streamlining sources to enhance the effectivity of water administration.
By means of this order, a mandate was issued to “enhance water storage, water provide reliability and drought resiliency” by means of inner co-ordination, but additionally to hunt new exterior alternatives.
In late 2024 — on the finish of President Joe Biden’s time period — an agreement in principle between Canada and the U.S. was reached on the Columbia River that appeared to strike a compromise over lots of the aforementioned considerations by adjusting the timing of when water could possibly be saved, how a lot could possibly be saved and when it might be launched.
Trump’s current “Putting People Over Fish” government order, nevertheless, makes clear his stance on a few of the Columbia River points, calling into query whether or not the brand new treaty phrases negotiated underneath the Biden administration will ever be ratified by Congress, particularly now that remaining negotiations have been formally paused.
Boundary Waters Treaty disregarded?
Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” government order highlights the over-reach of his administration because it intentionally defies the National Ecological Preservation Act to make sure water and vitality provide is allotted to folks first, disregarding environmental and ecological considerations.
For Canada, this has vital implications for the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, which oversees sharing of worldwide waters alongside the Canada-U.S. border. In some circumstances, the treaty permits Canada to carry again or divert water from the U.S., provisions that may be in direct violation of the Unleashing American Vitality government order regardless that Canada isn’t talked about explicitly.
(Shutterstock)
The Boundary Waters Treaty has lengthy since been the envy of other nations struggling to return to agreeable phrases over transboundary water-sharing and rights. Traditionally, it has been framed as an indication of a mutually useful, co-operative relationship between Canada and the U.S., a state of affairs that seemingly now not exists underneath the Trump administration.
One factor is evident — regardless of unsure occasions, Canadians should maintain agency in the case of water. Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed maybe stated it finest when he warned against sharing Canada’s water, reminding Canadians that “we must always talk to the US in a short time how agency we’re.”
