Emerging Institutions for Bilateral Management of the Columbia River Basin

Historically, binational governance of the Columbia River Basin has been controlled by federal agencies in the United States and federal-provincial agencies in British Columbia, both supported by the International Joint Commission. While this management system has served the region well for many years, it is now showing signs of strain. In both countries, stakeholders have identified a number of issues of concern, including the narrowness of the Columbia River Treaty. At the same time, there are pressures to create new management goals and more balanced systems of river basin planning and governance. Both countries are attempting to respond to a range of unresolved problems and concerns individually at the national level and bilaterally in the transboundary context. In this paper, we explore a spectrum of possible management outcomes that could emerge in the current search for a new consensus. All relate to questions of the values that should be sustained, and to the nature of an acceptable binational governance framework needed to achieve such values. The Context The Columbia basin has been used by societies in a variety of ways. Beginning as a provider of sustenance, water, and as a transportation artery for native peoples who first inhabited the area, its functions gradually evolved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to include large-scale commercial fisheries, transportation, water supplies, hydroelectricity, and recreation. Beginning in the 1930s, federal dams were built on the Columbia and its tributaries, while many nonfederal projects were devised to support the numerous uses of the basin by diverting, regulating, and storing water for consumptive and instream uses (United States, BPA 1991, 5). Investment in these dams and the related infrastructure has enabled many uses to coexist. In recent years, the basin has been described not only as a scenic treasure and ecological gem, but also as the economic backbone of the entire Pacific Northwest in the United States and central interior of British Columbia (Tetra Tech 1996, 1). Although high technology industries such as aerospace engineering, scientific instruments, and computer programming now contribute 42 percent of all employment in the basin south of the 49th parallel (United States 1995c, 2-7), the Columbia basin remains a supplier of many raw materials and semifinished manufactured goods (United States 1995c, 2-1). Average runoff from the Columbia is 198 million acre feet (maf) (275,022 cubic feet per second) at the mouth, making the Columbia's discharge second only to the Missouri-Mississippi River in the United States (United States 1995b, 1-1). The river originates in central British Columbia in the Rocky Mountains. Its waters flow 1,214 miles (1,954 km) to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon, making it the fourth longest river on the continent. Its drainage basin covers 219,000 square miles (567,200 km2) in seven states, which include Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and small parts of Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah, as well as 39,500 square miles (79,000 km2) in the province of British Columbia (United States 1995a, 2; Coulson 1996, 2) (fig. 1). Natural stream flows on the Columbia have fluctuated enormously. Prior to construction of the basin's storage dams, the river's volatile waters regularly flooded, destroying portions of communities situated on dangerous flood plain locations along its banks, causing death and the destruction of property and real estate. Reservoirs were constructed to act as a safety buffer and help prevent these disasters. They created adequate storage space for times when the river is at high levels. Today, flood control takes priority over all other uses (British Columbia 1993b, 2). Given this context, a variety of mechanisms were created, mostly during this century, to govern the resources in the Columbia, separately in each country as well as binationally. From relatively simple systems initially, these have grown into increasingly complex, overlapping institutions. …